POEMS/ Lesson at Robben Island
Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island
Lesson at Robben Island
When he was sixteen, our guide was imprisoned
for five years for demonstrating against the pass laws,
treated as a criminal, chained and confined
below as the ferry pitched and lunged its way
from Cape Town to Robben Island, and captivity.
He lives here now, guiding visitors on his journey
through two heavy iron prison gates, past the door
to the censor's room where letters from home
were inked or cut, news of the outside world
trimmed to bland and empty words, past the prison
court room and its harsh rules and retributions,
its penalties of solitude and water, past the office
where he became a number dressed in shorts,
no underwear or socks, through long halls
with barred doors, past Mandela’s high security cell,
with its slop bucket, small low table, its thin mattress
on the floor, and single worn blanket, past the outdoor
court surrounded by high cement walls, through
the dormitory for the school boys, where he stayed,
all told with a voice detached, distant, without judgement
or emotion. I wondered at his reticence, discretion.
He cherishes, he says, the peace and beauty
of the island, earns a good living to send home,
enough to feed his family well, and educate
his children though home is much too far away
too costly to visit more than once a year,
and when I asked if it was painful for him to return
here even though free, he admitted that his mind
sometimes opened to memories unbidden
he would try to drive away, expunging words
for fear, despair, hunger, loneliness, and I,
who have tried to practice the same selective
remembering, censoring those moments
too hurtful to live again, nodded that I understood.
©Phyllis Beck Katz
When he was sixteen, our guide was imprisoned
for five years for demonstrating against the pass laws,
treated as a criminal, chained and confined
below as the ferry pitched and lunged its way
from Cape Town to Robben Island, and captivity.
He lives here now, guiding visitors on his journey
through two heavy iron prison gates, past the door
to the censor's room where letters from home
were inked or cut, news of the outside world
trimmed to bland and empty words, past the prison
court room and its harsh rules and retributions,
its penalties of solitude and water, past the office
where he became a number dressed in shorts,
no underwear or socks, through long halls
with barred doors, past Mandela’s high security cell,
with its slop bucket, small low table, its thin mattress
on the floor, and single worn blanket, past the outdoor
court surrounded by high cement walls, through
the dormitory for the school boys, where he stayed,
all told with a voice detached, distant, without judgement
or emotion. I wondered at his reticence, discretion.
He cherishes, he says, the peace and beauty
of the island, earns a good living to send home,
enough to feed his family well, and educate
his children though home is much too far away
too costly to visit more than once a year,
and when I asked if it was painful for him to return
here even though free, he admitted that his mind
sometimes opened to memories unbidden
he would try to drive away, expunging words
for fear, despair, hunger, loneliness, and I,
who have tried to practice the same selective
remembering, censoring those moments
too hurtful to live again, nodded that I understood.
©Phyllis Beck Katz