Marikana 45

45 men dead.

Twelf-thousand, 500 Rand.

Numbers that mean life or death

Yet no numbers give nor lead to life.

45 men dead.

What is the cost

Of a father?

What is the cost

Of a father

Who returns home

Alive?

What is the cost

Of a father’s hug?

What is the cost

Of a father’s voice

Over the phone

Telling you

He is coming home?

Bringing you dresses,

Trousers,

School uniform?

What is the cost

Of saying Tata,

uTata wam?

What does it cost

The man who demands

Twelf- thousand, 500 rand?

When his pocket

Is full with twelf-thousand, 500 rand?

How will he feel

When he closes his eyes at night?

What does his face look like?

Does he pretend

That he never knew his neighbour?

Does he demand

Twelf-thousand, 500 rand

With a clear conscience?

Or does he need twelve-thousand, 500 rand

To bury himself from the sight of 45 men dead?

To shut himself from the

Sound of gun shots that killed someone’s son,

Someone’s husband,

Someone’s father,

Someone’s uncle,

A neighbour’s son,

Someone.

Does he still hear

His own name

Without guilt?

Does he still know whose son he is?

Does he know his children?

Can he look at their faces now?

Did he shoot or did he watch his neighbour fall?

Did he too die as he watched his friend fall?

Was the bullet his?

Will he dig where that man once dug?

Will he turn to a sangoma

To kill his conscience and die a slow death?

Will he look to the sky,

Beat his chest?

Will he beg for mercy?

Will he beg for mercy?

Will he beg for mercy?

For the greed of men,

For the lust of power,

For brutal inequalities?

Will he weep and beg for mercy?

For his friend’s children

For himself

For the men in blue

For the men playing with power

For the men of the mines

For the men who thought

They were in charge?

For the 45 men?

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