Born free! It's June 16! 
They crow like cocks 
proclaiming a new day 
to the child 
that stands before me 
clutching at her mother’s skirts 
as the traffic light 
turns red, she stares 
full of knowing. 

As I look in her eyes 
they betray the lie 
that simmers in a pot 
made on fires 
just below shadows 
of ivory towers that burn 
with electric illusions 
of smug delusion, 
as the rhetoric reptile 
slithers its way 
between shacks built from tin 
where the hunger sneaks in 
as it claws at the stomach 
curls its fists in despair 
then falls asleep hungry. 

These are the 
seeds that we’ve sown, 
the harvest we’ll reap 
that will cause to us weep, 
as the hyenas of promise, 
circle the weak, 
close in for the kill 
as they cackle, and feed 
tear apart with their teeth 
the beautiful rainbow 
as it burns in the air, 
dissolves in the heat, 
into nothing.


© Carol Ronaldson 

day 9 | 16 June 2011