Change the World

Change the World - Crying: Madiba

Crying

The sky was crying this morning.

Weeping tears dripped from cloud and tree

and moistened the cheeks of the earth in a cold lament,

of loss and forlorn misgiving of a future

now less bright and far colder.

The wind took up the cry and in its

bitter haste left us chilled and others roofless,

where here the roof over our heads is our future writ large. 

Without the home as our castle to protect,

then we are nomads and refugees.

There was crying on the radio

as the news we dreaded told us of the loss.

The great soul had departed after months of weary breathing,

and white coated caring insufficient to haul

back the years and restore health.

There was tribute across the screens

and the tears and cries of millions would join

the sky and all would cry the loss none can ever forget.

Life and lives so touched by a soul so light

will glow forever whatever the dark.

My tears came in the night when end 

of day and ablutions made gave still moment, so

memory and grief could wrap their arms around me then,

throw me down into that well of self pity

from which many never return.

I have wrapped this loss into all that

has gone before. Where love and life was torn

and taken, leaving me standing alone, cold and tear sodden.

I have poured a life of grief into this moment

and overlaid one man with all.

He was not one man who, locked away

cried to himself and lost the will to fight and 

Change the World. He was a man who smiled at children and 

told everyone to build the future, not cling

in anger to a past that could kill.

He was a man who fought with his life

and a body wracked with illness from stone cold

and dust of labours forced upon a soul that flew free taking

the hands of all those who needed to be uplifted

and drawn back to the light.

You reading this, blessings be upon you,

lest your mind fearing the light stay concealed.

Let your tears flow like the wine of your soul that they are,

so they may blend into the sea of life, rising

as mist and cloud into the sky-mind.

Cry freely the tears of life giving soul

essence, so that all beings may share the distillation

of life that has come through you and your pain and experience,

to fall as fertile rain upon the soil of being

sprouting gloried dreams of freedom.