Last November, an icon of Rhodesia, Ian Douglas Smith, died. I am not too sentimental about the 'old Rhodie days' preferring much more to lament the 'good Zimbo days' and the many happy years we had in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 2002. However, Sinclair Ellis wrote the following poem. One interesting memory about Mrs Ellis is that in the 60s and 70s she was well known for her paintings of cats, on copper, and signed SINCLAIR. Like many diaspora communities, the scatterlings of Zimbabwe and Rhodesia, are making new lives in other places, and for the most part, I think those communities are better for their influence.
When our songs will be forgotten,
The peace dream will be dead,
The flame lily will wither,
Our memories have fled.
When the last of our ashes
Is lost in wind and rain,
Yet somewhere in the scatter
Our blood lines will remain.
When the last of us has given
All we had to give,
Within the nations of the earth
Our heritage will live.
by Sinclair Ellis (December 2007)
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