Poem: In Praise of Refugees

January 13, 2024
1 min read

REFUGEE
 
By Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
 
Friday, June 27, 2008.
 
People ask me:where is home?
Last time I saw my villageit was burningin the night.
My house, a screamingmouthof firehot fearin the mask of darkness.
My only thought was flight.
Nobody here understands my language, soI speak the tongue of compromise.The grateful grammarof being alive.
This is my certainty, my identity.
People ask me, where is home?I sayhome is where the heart is.
At night I watch the stars:distant villages, all aflame,terrified angels, running away.
© Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
 
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers is a South African writer, performer, and poet living in Johannesburg. She studied journalism in South Africa and theatre in Paris and then returned to academia in the late 1990s, consolidating her passions for writing and performance with a degree in dramatic arts. She writes for a television series in South Africa. She blogs at Poet Afrika.
 
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