This poem was written by Robson Isaac Shoes Lambada interrogating the concept of Political Independence in Zimbabwe which was gained on 18 April 1980 through an armed liberation struggle led by the current President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Mugabe has now become a dictator and people no longer enjoy the benefits of independence. ShoesLambada is the co-founder and Programmes Manager of Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights, the most vibrant poetry movement that advocates for the respect, recognition and observance of human rights in the face of anti-democratic situations. Even at a time when there is a new political dispensation in the form of an inclusive government between ZANU PF and the MDC, ShoesLambada still continues his struggle for the respect of human rights through the spoken word.
Sopranic echoes of silence

FREEDOM

Aggravate the complications of my bitterness
The high-pitched voice of muteness
Pricks the inner wound covering my tears
That will only dry when freedom is freed.

A whirlwind and fragment
Of thoughts entirely flummoxes my conscience
When I imagine hand-cuffed and leg-ironed freeom:
Freedom behind bars!
They fought for freedom
Were awarded freedom
Celebrated, dined and wined for and with freedom
Yet when freedom uttered her free thoughts,
Paradoxically they frantically slapped freedom in the face
And silenced her by a battery of diabolic statutes.

The inspired voice of freedom now speaks in silence
Visiting in my dreams like an ancestral instruction
I hear sopranic echoes of silence
Aggravating the complications of my bitterness.
The high-pitched voice of muteness
Pricking the innerwound
Which will only heal and dry when freedom is freed.