Nelson

My heart knew you were leaving, long before my eyes saw you go.
Before my ears caught the faint shuffle, the soft noise,
Of your feet, as they turned from this life.
These past years, I had tried to ignore the signs.
I pretended that the waning wick at the bottom of your candle could hold its flame forever.
But with a flicker, a last wink, you bid your farewell to this world.
You had hung up your coat and stored away your working shoes.
With your words, you painted our lives in colors we knew not existed.
With the smile we have come to cherish, you nursed us back to hope.
Reconciliation wasn't born out of peace, you dug it out of the ugly sewers of war.
You thought you had gone of your own will, to battle Goliath, to fight for your rights.
You thought your soldier's pebbles were to defend those, looking just like you.
Little did you know about the truth. You were sent to the field, a brother of the oppressed human race.
You were sent, but you were not free to choose your weapons, for no grenade nor bomb could inflict this defeat.
This embryonic victory, you had to conceive deep in the pit, in the solitary confinement of your soul.
And before you could live it out, you had to suffer the violence of death;
The annihilation of your will, the deconstruction of what was,
That the new you might push through, ripping apart its twenty seven year old pod.
Then, a powerful thistle seed, armed on the breath of the wind, you became.  
A thorn sunken deep into the heart of apartheid, you caused the giant to bleed until it came down.
So you waved your goodbye, and though it pains us to see you go, we too can wave back with a smile even through the tears.