“Robert Mugabe

The former President of Zimbabwe has died”

A voice intoned over the radio.

I waited for the shock of loss.

None came.

I thought somewhere,

in the dark corners of my deeply scarred soul,

I would find at least a shadow of grief.

There was none.

I waited for the tears to come.

But there was nothing.

No lachrymose outpouring of grief.

They were long gone.

Shed over the years

For the unhealed wounds of my people

Dealt by that despot

Named for an angel

One of the best and brightest

God’s own messenger.

Who instead trafficked in death

It makes me angry

That he’s gathered peacefully to rest

With his forefathers

Leaving in his wake

A nation destroyed for generations.

Death was too good for him.

The nation cheated of retribution

What about the thousands?

Dead in mass graves in Matebeleland.

The car accidents?

Loved ones vanished without a trace,

Their bodies dissolved in acid.

A literate people dying of cholera in the city and

Of HIV AIDS in the village.

What about the millions?

Dead men walking, without hope, without God

Women raped, the scars on their souls

Veiled with hysterical laughter.

What about the billions

Embezzled & stashed outside the country.

Broken families scattered across a world.

Of increasingly hostile nations

Anxiously making a living.

What about the parents they cannot bury,

The children they cannot raise,

Beloved spouses parted by distance not death.

How dare he die?

Leaving us to live

With the consequences of his misrule.

There are others more deserving

Of my grief

The ones sacrificed

For his bloodthirsty lust for power

There’ll be no elegy for him.

No tears for old Bob.

©️ Pearl Deyi 2019