Empilweni:
Three poems
about our work

Safe
No more
Secrets

Beneath the careful words of clinical assessment, carefully wrapped in the layered words of funding proposals and a desperate need for financial assistance, as is the case for countless South African community-based projects, behind all this lies the child.

And within each of us lies a child with fears and hurts and a desperate longing for a safe place. It’s also true that no matter how secure we might appear as adults, not all of us had a happy childhood. Unkind words, distant parents, outright abuse – all of these contribute to the people we become. And when we interact with our own children what sort of safe place do we create for them? Here are three poems specially crafted for Empilweni by a local writer.

Not everyone has a
happy childhood
but there are moments
when pain and hurt
the cruel words
of other kids and
adults who should know better
times when these
can be made a
little easier to forget
for a while.

What I long for
is a safe space
for the child in me
to laugh and sing
and feel just like
a child again
in a safe space
for any child
to be –
just that –
a child.

By Ross Edwards

Back to top

When you touch me
in a way I don’t like
that I know is wrong
it’s okay for me
to say
No more.

When you say things
that hurt me
make me feel stupid
like you don’t love me
it’s okay for me
to say
No more.

When you make
me see the ones
I love being hurt
my mother my father
my brother my sister
my granny my grandpa
when you hurt them
it also hurts me and
it’s okay for me
to say
No more.

Remember this one thing
you who raise your
voice in violence
against me
you who lift your
hands in hate
hands that should be
loving and caring for me.

Remember this one thing
I will not
always be a child
one day I will
be a man a woman
(perhaps I’ll be
a mother a father?)
When that day comes
tell me one thing.
How do you
imagine I will
remember you?

By Ross Edwards

Back to top

Secrets

If someone tells me
to keep a secret
it depends on the secret
if the secret
is a very big one
but it still hurts people
if it hurts me
or if it hurts
someone I love
then I really
don’t think
that kind of secret
no matter how
secret it is
is worth
keeping –
do you?

By Ross Edwards

Back to top