B Wagner

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Come sit by the fire, Madiba,
May I call you that?
Warm your tired noble bones.

Twenty years in prison
isolated, shackled, cracking rocks
on that barren island.
You forgave.

Freed, with you, we walked in sunshine.
We swayed and sang.
In vivid tribal robes, we danced
wove threads of hope.
You forgave.

Our brothers disappeared.
Then tossed back broken.
You forgave.

But sir, you asked so much.

In crowded, airless courtrooms,
men still in uniform, eyes unfocused,
spat confessions of brutality
punctuated by mothers’ raw wails.
Smelt their indifference.

My eyes now stitched wide open,
I ache for revenge,
for blood.

Tendrils of fog float
down from the Dragon Mountains.
The fire crackles.
You hold my hand.

My child, what else could I have done?

B Wagner was born in South Africa, and although she left when she was young, she has visited many times. She once shook Desmond Tutu’s hand. SHe worked briefly at the Baragwnath hospital in the Sweto Township. Steve Beko and others didn’t make it back even to the hospital and were chucked dead.  She would like to be on the side that this committee was “a good thing”. Sadly for her, it did little to mend wounds, and the men who committed this horror got off scot free.