Yeah, yeah…I’m a late bloomer at this things and it sucks sometimes(rolls eyes heavenward) especially when it was just two days ago but then again the poem that comes to mind is my all-time favorite and yes you guessed right…
Nightfall in Soweto – Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali
Nightfall comes like a dreaded disease
seeping through the pores of a healthy body
and ravaging it beyond repair
A murderer’s hand,
lurking in the shadows,
clasping the dagger,
strikes down the helpless victim.
I am the victim.
I am slaughtered
every night in the streets.
I am cornered by the fear
gnawing at my timid heart;
in my helplessness I languish.
Man has ceased to be man
Man has become beast
Man has become prey.
I am the prey;
I am the quarry to be run down
by the marauding beast
let loose by cruel nightfall
from his cage of death.
Where is my refuge?
Where am I safe?
Not in my matchbox house
Where I barricade myself against nightfall.
I tremble at his crunching footsteps,
I quake at his deafening knock at the door.
“Open up!” he barks like a rabid dog
thirsty for my blood.
Nightfall! Nightfall!
You are my mortal enemy.
But why were you ever created?
Why can’t it be daytime?
Daytime forever more?
Poem and Image Credit: www.connectafrica.net