Golden Shovel : We Wear the Mask 

~ For the Mbundu people of Angola 

the weight we 

bare and 

smile 

as the lines on our faces cave, but 

not on the plaster everyone sees

the one beneath of the great 

deities our people prayed to – christ

they ignore our 

pain and cries 

crescendoing the severity of their needs to 

drown out thee 

screaming within from 

tortured souls 

we arise 

against their will, we 

sing, oh lord, do we sing 

of the lands we will one day return to, but 

oh! 

the clay 

taken from our soil, stuffed into our

mouths and 

molded to the shapes of our torment 

is this what our mothers prepared us for? is, 

this the vile 

they felt upon first glance?