Don’t starve your children
is the final word
a prophetic message
by Dr Sindiwe Magona
on Sunday SAFM radio

World Food Day has been
and here we are in Africa
where there is hunger
of all shades

(one in every four children
here go hungry each day
with child malnutrition stalling
Africa’s and African growth)

Don’t starve your children
homebound from a Poetry Circle
I open-jawed watch a young mother
frustrated by her restless infant
vehemently shake and rebuke her

(I ponder the mother’s own
rearing and that of the child
whether she reads to her
whether she was read to)

(the same Saturday Cape Flats train
brings forth a youth puffing defiantly
and two older fellows saunter
through the third class cattle-truck
beer and glass and radio at hand)

Don’t starve your children
a whole hour of Sindiwe Magona
with Antjie Krog joining in
and Nancy Richards and others
phoning in too to have a word or two

Don’t starve your children
for some reason I think
of the John Lennon refrain
as soon as they are born
we make them feel small

Don’t starve your children

Another weekend passes me by; Sunday 28 October 2018.

come to Africa

come to Africa
where you can
find hewers of wood
and drawers of water
(and the proverbial
leaking begging bowl)

come to Africa
(Africa is here)
where you can
find malnutrition
poverty and disease
crime and crimes
against humanity

Structural Adjustment
the IMF too
and the World Bank

where you can
further exploit
the natural resources

women and children
and The Other

The Other
who you can
exploit too

whatever they
look like
to you
in your own
image

your own
image
of Africa

however it is
shaded
and Othered

come to Africa
scramble for Africa

one more time