Mandela
Twenty-seven years he was in jail.
Yet all that time his holy grail,
Was reconciliation.
Though restricted, he chose to get word out,
That compassion, understanding he was about,
Bridge-building communication.
Though wounded, we each have our time.
To express our love in prose or rhyme,
Even to build a nation.
© F.W. HeatonMarch, 2013
This blog post is on the subject of how, if you work at it, your poetry can become a gift, even a particularly important gift, one you might wish to share with others. To illustrate this opportunity, I’ve chosen my March, 2013 poem I sent to Nelson Mandela to celebrate his 95th birthday. Thinking on the subject of attitude, focusing particularly on the saying “Life is ten-percent what happens to you and ninety-percent how you react to it,” I meditated on Mandela’s life under South African apartheid. He endured a twenty-seven-year imprisonment, and, upon release in 1990, dedicated his life to reconciliation, the dissolution of apartheid, the forming of a democracy and becoming the first President of democratic South Africa 1994-1999. Time and attitude are two precious commodities. We have little control over the first other than attempted wise use; we have considerable control over the second, having the opportunity to choose, as did Mandela, one’s life approach. I wrote this poem in March, 2013 when Mandela was hospitalized, his fourth hospitalization since December, 2012. With prayers from family, friends and admirers around the world, Mandela recovered to the point of release from hospital July, 2013. I sent this poem to Mandela and to the media as both a prayer of thanksgiving and as a birthday gift 18 July, 2013! Mandela died that following December.
