By Julie L. Snorek
Breath in, breathe out
Cross the killing fields
Breathe in, breathe out
Salty sands scratch the eye
Strewn with bones of those
Fed by lies
That privileged one man
When the world was
In haste to arise.
Caught, killed, concentrated
A German-penned paper trail
Erases the sacredness of life
For they possessed only one
Upon whose throats they stepped
For colonization
Reduced to the number to labor,
To enrich, to construct until
Reduced to dust
Under which my feet now pass
All this shame laying to roast
In the open sun.
They fought
The brave Herrero, the Nama
The children
Who drank the poisoned well
Their souls live inside a memory
That a treacherous white heritage
Defined, classified
And exterminated
‘the Other’
So now with heaviness around me
I cross the field
The air stands before me
Wreaking in the sun of
Tears, cries, blood, woe
Breathe in, breathe out.
Let it go.
Stand before it.
For now, the field remains.
For now we are humbled.
For now and for tomorrow
In the body of one,
In the body of man.