Just-A-Man Mandela

Nelson
Tata to a nation
as you stand at yet
another gate, I wonder
what holds sway in your
remembering – decades in
a prison cell circumscribed by
those who would define you – were
they wrong? – by the violence you played
with in ever more desperate measures to claim
even the possibility of freedom for your own
or the women – the many women – what
is it about men of charismatic mein
that the women become your
drug of choice?  Your
children– will you
miss them as
they will
surely
miss you?
Do you ponder
the many meetings
and speeches and losses
and victories?  Do you forget
as we have the violence and recall
only the peace – for it was prodigious
the reconciling calls to a forgiving together
kind of living that you and others dared dream into
something approaching reality in the land that
so held your heart and soul in its wrenching
claim upon your destiny?  We so want
our saints to be perfect, so without
the many sins that hold sway in
our own lives – the humdrum
ordinariness of the wrong
won’t do for you
Mandela