FENCES IN NEED OF MENDING

Fences all around
A captive in the middle
Shackled, tied and bound
Her life has become a riddle

Her sunken cheeks once supple and round
Scarred by years of biting a bridle
Limbs that hurt when they touch the ground
Speak of tales of one once busy but now is idle

A voice once happy and sound
Now raspy like a broken fiddle
Despair and anger surround
The outlet that once was her window

A fortress where hope could be found
Reverberates with Cries reaching a crescendo
Remove this terror and pain that has become a mound
So her song can resound, and never again to be called a widow

By Solomon W. Jagwe | © All Rights Reserved

I watched as a gray streaking hare
hopped and leaped into the air with a flair
only to land smack right in the middle of a snare
blinded by the intense glare of a blinding flare

was the hare in a scare that was rare?

wiggling this way and that way but going no where
it lay quiet and still with its belly laid bare

a hunter stopped to stare
at this forlorn creature so tight and gasping for air

bending down he cut the jaws that made a pair
freeing the hare from the steel grip of terror

I looked closely to see what kind of fella
would offer a hand as an umbrella
to a creature that by all accounts fair and square
should have ended up in the back of his trailer

Hutu or Tutsi? Rwandise, was the gentle counter
When I ventured to ask if it was an error
I am neither one nor the other

He pointed to his gray hair and then to the freed hare
My eyes quickly adjusted in a bid to compare
and In an instant, I saw the damage and the repair
and a tear rolled down as it washed away my despair

For there before me stood two echos with time to spare
reverberating with a message so simple and lacking in flair
the swift kicks of a free wheeling hare
and yet as timeless and winding as the white strands of hair
of a kind and loving hunter fella
that I met in the back of a rusty and dusty trailer

By Solomon W. Jagwe | © All Rights Reserved