Standing On Shark Island Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

I stand here ready to go down in shreds
and leave the land of my birth to the reich.
He has chosen me today. I will go for going
is like coming. Now that you see me, all
of me, sinew by sinew. I am ready to go
where the sharks will put my skull on the
shrine of remembrance, where only those
who know how to fight go.

Once a man went inside a whale, they say,
and then he came our unharmed.
I will be no more when I go, only if you
forget to go and call my name on Shark Island.
Swakopmund is not far, when you mean
to go there for me. I mean something to
someone. Walk for me on Shark Island.
Call me by any Griqua name. Call my Nama
name. I will answer in the waves. They
tasted my blood.

One day someone will care, that I suffered
like the many, who were swallowed by
the sharks. When others say go and die,
they say so with bloody hands that have
power. We leave our land to you. You will
hear of us from our children. You will see
them with hidden tears in their eyes.
They will not forget those who left
to go and be eaten alive.

We built this land of ours, that today
we must leave to these who kill,
and get forgiven because nobody
asks questions on our behalf.

We have no shoah. When you see
others in the cities, know that the
death was the same. We were made
to throw ourselves one after another
at the sound of the whip.

Is it because we have no images
of how we looked inside the mouth
of a shark, that the world forgets
us and live us a story of life taken
and forgotten?

These people whose lives only matter
when they have killed others and then
bury their heads in the sand have to
answer like they do for all these deeds.
The law which choses is not a law
for all.

Where is the law that remembers us?
Is it in the mouth of other sharks?
These that equally say jump in and be eaten.
For it is nice to watch history in the
making, when some are green and yellow.

I have seen the Hage. I have stood there
listening to judgements of some while
I wait in these shadows of Shark Island
for a lawyer that is brave. It does not
take a crowd, but just one who can speak
the truth that people have put a silence on
that is like a rock. They rock it this
way and that. They want it to stay put
on this truth that I speak so freely.

It is nice to be free, they say.
They come out with hands
clean, when they buried us in the stomachs
of sharks. Go your way and jump.
We cannot eat your truth. Eat yours.
We did not eat, but were eaten.
When you eat your dinners
today, remember you made us the dinner of sharks.
Your silence claps for those who were behind us.
Together with a world that is silent you say
Jump in and be eaten. Silence is good
because it speaks louder than words.