The highway,
tarmac crumbling, potholes yawning,
snakes it way
between the village and the township.
Here by this roadside,
I take my rest.

In the city,
grim with the broken dreams of many hearts,
buildings stand,
a coat of grey clay dust
upon each forlorn facet,
the rank air,
surfeit with the sweat of struggling millions.

There thugs lie in wait for me
some want my body
others want my soul
And I have not double of both.
So I sit to pray
And in praying
Wake.

They who led us thus far have absconded,
having hurled reason into the river
that snaked its way to far away oceans
And we have none more to replace it

So I sit to cry
And in crying
Wake.

The village- they have torn down,
The township gapes, an unfinished hole.
Like old clothes with one too many patches,
the old ways are discarded,
The new ones are long in arriving.

I dream long and dream often
But visions flee when dawn arrives.
I sit to cry
And in crying
Wake.

With each awakening the nightmare lengthens,
Do I truly dream or do I live,
And can this a living be?
Where exists the glorious promise of which I dream?
Do I dream or do I die?

Thus stranded between village and township,
lost between today and tomorrow
caught between past and present,
called by dreams of glorious promises
and tied by a present that ever grows ever more
deprived
I sit to find
and in finding
Wake.

Pambazuka News is the only way I can think of keeping well informed about African issues from this distance. Without such resources one tends to lose touch.