Poem
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Hotel Alice
on march 21
the people’s feet thundered
seven thousand
through the township
of sharpeville
chanting izwe lethu
come hell or mandela
they would fell the passbook laws
sixty nine dead
without one
dispersion warning
wailing children carried the bodies
of wailing children carried
their mothers shouldered
the men
and all the black and
fertile soil
sunken with their blood
we call it harmony day
down here
in the land
where apartheid still exists
and the laws of apartheid
began
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