<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Anguish Longer Than Sorrow<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">If destroying all the maps known<br class="">would erase all the boundaries<br class="">from the face of this earth<br class="">I would say let us<br class="">make a bonfire<br class="">to reclaim and sing<br class="">the human person</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Refugee is an ominous load<br class="">even for a child to carry<br class="">for some children<br class="">words like home<br class="">could not carry any possible meaning<br class="">but<br class="">displaced<br class="">border<br class="">refugee<br class="">must carry dimensions of brutality and terror<br class="">past the most hideous nightmare<br class="">anyone could experience or imagine</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Empty their young eyes<br class="">deprived of a vision of any future<br class="">they should have been entitled to<br class="">since they did not choose to be born<br class="">where and when they were<br class="">Empty their young bellies<br class="">extended and rounded by malnutrition<br class="">and growling like the well-fed dogs of some <br class="">with pretensions to concerns about human rights<br class="">violations</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Can you see them now<br class="">stumble from nowhere<br class="">to no<br class="">where<br class="">between<br class="">nothing<br class="">and<br class="">nothing</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Consider<br class="">the premature daily death of their young dreams<br class="">what staggering memories frighten and abort<br class="">the hope that should have been<br class="">an indelible inscription in their young eyes</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Perhaps<br class="">I should just borrow<br class="">the rememberer’s voice again<br class="">while I can and say:<br class="">to have a home is not a favour. </span></p><h1 id="gedicht-autor" style="margin: 0px 0px 17px 15px; line-height: 40px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-image: none;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: normal;" class=""><font size="4" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Keorapetse Kgositsile</font></span></h1><div class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""> (Former Poet Laureate of South Africa:</span></div><div class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">September 19,1938 – January 3, 2018)</span></div></div><div class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div></body></html>