New Dawn edit 2

[JohnS]

When dawn had broken through
the shroud of cooking smoke
which lay over the township,
the skyline of distant Johannesburg
glowed like molten gold.
 
A young man stepped down from a bus,
and joined a line that snaked
towards a tin-roofed school-house
set in a field more dirt than grass.
 
The long line shimmied forward,
people sang and toyi-toyied,
bare feet slapped the hard-packed earth.
For hour after hour it moved,
determined,
unstoppable,
inevitable.
 
A sign above the door read “Polling Station”.
The young man went inside and made his choice.
A pencilled cross, so simple to make,
so hard to win the right to make.
 
After, he stood on the school steps,
raised his arms and cried,
Amandla! (power).
And those in the line responded,
Awethu! (to us). 

When the morning sun broke through
the smoke from the cooking fires
which lay like a blanket over the township,
the skyline of distant Johannesburg
glowed like molten gold.

Daniel stepped down from the bus,
and joined a line that snaked sinuously
towards the tin-roofed school house
sitting below the kopje,
in a field more dirt than grass.

The line shimmied forward,
as people sang and toyi-toyied,
bare feet slapping the hard-packed earth.
For hour after hour it moved,
determined,
unstoppable,
inevitable.

A sign above the door - polling station.
Daniel made his choice.
A cross - so simple to make,
so hard to win the right to make.

After, Daniel stood on the school house steps,
raised his arms and cried,
Amandla! (power)
And those in the line responded,
Awethu! (to us)

It was April 26, 1994.