Two black fighters
Walk, shackled by colonialism,
Down the byway of hope
Struggling to set their brothers free
For one, the barriers were within,
The white Afrikaans supremacy
For the other, from without
The suppression of blacks from overseas
Both became trapped in dungeons
For years and years
Where they would mature or fester
For the freedom of those they led
They stood at their own decisive crossroads
Trying to read the signs
To tell which way
To go, to find the answers
As they saw their futures
Two roads diverging in a dark wood
Knowing they could not travel both
Each path bent in the undergrowth
One well-worn in the emerging Africa
The other still grassy, no steps trodden black
They confronted how way leads to way
Never to come back
Madiba took the road less-well traveled
Took his people to freedom and reconciliation
Having achieved so much
Handed over to his black fighter comrades
Died a global icon
Mugabe took the trampled road to corruption
And terror, killing white farmers
Black adversaries alike
One party rule, only warriors allowed
Destroyed all opponents, died a global pariah
Franschhoek, South Africa, January 2020
