Deadpan faces
Cold dark places
Everyone scurrying to and fro
Biting wind and drizzling rain
This is my new place,
Far from home.

Precious memories of happier days
Clear blue skies on which to gaze
Happy people, smiling faces
Under the warm Rhodesian sun
The smell of rain upon the earth.
The country of my children’s birth.

Our life turned round, within a flash
Then we had to make that dash
From our homeland to a life a new
Upped our roots and off we flew.

So now we’re banished to a foreign place
I hope they are happy with their fate
No more food upon the plate
Hardship they now also face.

© Jackie Snowdon
November 2002