What Mpumelelo calls school flowers,
native back home, are growing here
outside this foreign hospital,
and I've been singing with them
songs of quiet comfort from
a long way down the line
that has led to now.

The old man in my stomach
and the young girl of my heart
have been walking through this
vast darkness, seen through me,
as me, and suddenly it does not obstruct
but opens the gate for what must pass
through.

It is the simple lesson of
hallelujah anyhow,
and I thank my motherland
for the spirit who is this,
who does not shirk the pain
but sings with it, in it,
wrapping it carefully in the present:

hallelujah anyhow.