Dear Drusilla,

Do you remember?
That sunny April day
In the dappled light
Between the musasa saplings
When you emerged
From your little tent;
When we embraced and
Thanked the sun for its warmth?

Do you remember?
The Easter aroma of
Fields ready for harvest
When we drove to Harare
Through the land
You had liberated?

Do you remember?
The fascination
Of your nieces,
Shelagh and Tendai,
For their very own war-hero auntie?

And
Do you remember?
The homecoming
The indifference
The suspicion and
The ingratitude?

Do you remember?
The ridicule
The betrayal by those
Who had made good
While you wasted
Your prime years
In the Mozambique bush?

Do you remember
The hostility,
The rancour,
From your workmates?
The harassment and banishment?
Being branded
“The ex-combatant”,
Like a paroled criminal?

Oh!
Do these worthless, filthy
Fifty thousand dollars,
The price of dehumanization,
Redeem the torture
The rapes and abuse
At the hands of the ‘Party’
That you gave your soul
To serve
For the liberation
Of your land?

So the ‘chefs’
Could live in obscene wealth
From ill-gotten gains,
Plunder
The common weal
While street kids
Die in sewers?

Oh woman of sorrows,
Rejected, despised and
Acquainted with
Much grief:

Fare ye well.

Go my little sister,
To those who await you
In the land of the living;
To  father Steven Ndapota
To Steven your son
To Shelagh
To Dagmar and Gershom
And
The Old Man of Mozambique;

There you will find family;
To belong
To be grandchild, daughter, sister,
And mother forever again.