Madiba

The hills and the valleys of Muezo,
land where you walked as a boy,
have gathered you home, now, Madiba.
May your people follow your footsteps,
remembering your name.

Your people lay you to rest
after your long walk to freedom,
rest you deserve,
after the shining vision
that you made
of your time on this earth.
You took the dream in your heart,
nurtured for decades,
and achieved the reality
for your people.

Your dance of joy
danced in my heart,
the day that dream came true.

May the cry of the sacred ibis
and the respectful roar of the lion
sing you to sleep, now, Madiba.
May the voices of your people, singing,
all across the land,
thread through your dreams.

May you know,
at this completion of your journey,
that you did well.
May you hear, where now you have traveled,
"You are my beloved son, 
in whom  I am well pleased".

My friends, as I anticipated the death of Mandela, and always respond to loss with stoicism, at first, I have moved through the days since one of my heroes died, thinking I had absorbed the fact into my being. But hearing the notes of these singers, for the first time I realized that he is gone. And now the tears come, hot and fast, for my Madiba.

posted for Kerry's prompt at Real Toads, to write our thoughts about Mandela, whose loss is freshest for her and her compatriots in South Africa. He is a global hero, but he was a boy and then a man of the people of South Africa, first.