By Nanganetvoices
go on then — steal the coffers dry,
build your marble statues to your swelling pride,
fly first-class to conferences on poverty you’ve never felt,
pocket your per diems and fat allowances,
feed your bellies, line your nests — but leave our classrooms whole.
we see you — lions in tailored suits,
bellowing budget cuts through microphones of deceit,
telling mothers to tighten belts while you loosen yours at buffets,
cutting the veins that feed young minds
because free thought frightens your empire of yes-men.
don’t pretend it’s arithmetic —
your sum is simple: keep them ignorant, keep them kneeling,
keep their eyes dim so they never read your ledgers of plunder,
never write their own names on ballots of change,
never dream beyond the leaking roof of a broken classroom.
steal our money — we’ve seen it before,
watching you pose with golden scissors at ribbon cuttings
for monuments to your fragile egos —
roads that lead to nowhere, towers that cast shadows over empty desks,
projects announced at rallies while teachers beg for chalk.
but do not steal our future —
do not squeeze the lifeblood from free education,
do not choke the seed that could outgrow your throne,
for every child you leave unlearned today
is a storm waiting tomorrow — your courts will choke with them,
your prisons will swell with them, your silence will weep for them.
so steal our money — but not our minds,
we can rebuild our treasury, but we cannot replace a wasted mind.
remember, oh foxes of parliament, hyenas of the treasury —
the children you starve of books today
will write your obituary tomorrow.
-The poet is a university don and literary writer.