Somehow We Survive - Dennis Brutus

[Larry Robinson]

Somehow We Survive

Somehow we survive
and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither.
Investigating searchlights rake
our naked, unprotected contours;
over our heads the monolithic decalogue
of fascist prohibition glowers
and teeters for a catastrophic fall;
boots club the peeling door.
But somehow we survive
severance, deprivation, loss.
Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark
hissing their menace to our lives,
most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror,
rendered unlovely and unlovable;
sundered are we and all our passionate surrender
but somehow tenderness survives.

	- Dennis Brutus
	   (1924–2009)



 <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dennis-brutus#>
 <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dennis-brutus#>
 <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dennis-brutus#>
 <mailto:?subject=Poetry%20Foundation&body=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dennis-brutus>
Born in Zimbabwe, poet and human rights activist Dennis Brutus grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and was educated at Fort Hare University College. He taught high school for 14 years until he was dismissed for antiapartheid activism. After studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand and becoming increasingly active in movements opposing racial discrimination in sports, Brutus was shot and then sentenced to 18 months of hard labor on Robben Island, alongside Nelson Mandela. Forbidden to write or publish after his release, Brutus left South Africa in 1966 for England and then the United States.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20220304/cbdcd989/attachment.htm>