A View from Above

A look at Informal Settlements in South Africa

Corrugated tin shelters, no room to change your mind.

For warmth - walls are newspaper-lined,

Skinny children play with an even skinnier hound,

oblivious to the world around, young women you'd swear they were,

sitting with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

They look on, empty, disinterested, staring they've long since given up caring,

with the black hand of poverty pushing them down

their once hopeful expressions are replaced with a frown.

The stench of indigence is overpoweringly strong,

for human beings to live like this just seems so wrong.

This is what I'd seen in one hot second of rue,

imagine what I'd seen if I'd stayed for two.

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