The poet is a sangoma
throwing bare-bones words that
uncover occult
universes where they
land.

Your body is wild magic.
You harden under my hand.
I am a sorceress
commanding forces
that untether oceans -
unleashing the tsunami
that will change the shape of things
                                                  forever.

The breath stirs.

The blood, that deep, pulsing tide,
Accepts its spirit burden -
Holds it for but a whisper
And then lets it go.

The body receives it next -
Each cell bearing it only for as long
As is needed for transformation:
Breath into energy
Energy released -
Given up to become  
Motion, emotion, expression.
Breath made word made flesh.

It is the heart that unites the blood and the body -
Every rhythmic beat
An accepting and a letting go,
That the blood might flow,
That the breath might be carried,

That the body might dance.

If you don’t mind, sir,
                                            I think I’ll take your

“It’s a fact”
And put it over here      
                                             And then I’ll fetch            
                                               “No, it isn’t”
                                                                               And  put it over here.

Let’s wait, shall we, until all the
to-ing and fro-ing and up-ing and down-ing is over
And everything is quite still?

                                                      Then,
                                     Once the scales have settled,
              I’ll be able to tell you if I will ever trust a word you say.

So.

Here I stand,
alone,
a tall, awkward pole in the vast,
echoing desolation that used to be
us.

And I wonder,
Bewildered,
what the **** just happened.

And the answer rings like a bell -
clear in the silence:

I was not enough.

I generally fight silence

But there are days when it wins

Today
I sit
quiet
and I listen

Listen as:

air moves leaf against leaf
Big leaf, small leaf, in-between leaf
Each brush a distinct sound stroke
A multi-tonal
“Hush!”

the flowers
of the neighbours’ jacaranda
fall
Plop, plop, plop
onto our Strelizia’s large leaves
Boundary-erasing purple rain

something scratch-scratches
in the undergrowth
under my window

Has one of the dogs got out?
I almost get up
Stop listening

but no
It’s the Hadeda Ibis
rooting for the ill-fated worm
It’s the rustle of
nature communing with nature
offering itself
consuming itself
A fierce, fearless, closed loop of
provide and eat
eat and provide

And my self-protective humanness feels
like a frail outsideness

a complicated loneliness

Perhaps this
is why
I generally fight silence

I look like my dad.

My mom looks like Audrey Hepburn,
with a dash of Twiggy thrown in
for good measure,

but I,
I look like my dad.

(My dad, for the sake of clarity,
looks nothing like Audrey Hepburn
or Twiggy.
He’s more the George Clooney type -
which is a great look for George Clooney
and for my dad -
but not
for a girl who wanted to look like
Princess Di,
or Cindy Crawford,
or  Julia Roberts,
or Gisele…)

A woman now,
wiser now,
older now,
I look in the mirror and know that -
all things progressing as they usually do -
a time will come
when the mirror will be the only place
I will see his face.

And I hope,
when that time comes,
I can still remember

how to look at myself through those eyes
that knew I was beautiful long before I even knew my own name:

How to look
like my dad.

It was on a Friday they told me you were dead.

And Daddy was away
And didn't know to come right away
And my friend gave me lilies
Because what was there to say?

For a week I carried you
Still, heavy, silent
A breathing tomb.

I birthed you on Good Friday morning
Held you in the hollow of my hand
Tiny, formed, delicate, alabaster -

David.

My baby
Who lived in my hope
But died in my body
Who lived in my heart
But never in my arms

They told us we could bury you
So we did
In our own soil
Paper shroud, shoebox coffin
Mommy's letter in a bottle.

I planted a lilac to remember you by.

Time passed
We moved away
I had to leave you and the letter and the lilac behind.

Still I am moving away
Leaving you and the letter and the lilac behind.

It's been an age
                   [or is it an eon?
                   or maybe an epoch?]
since we were ****** from our Garden -
                   [and why was it called
                   the tree of the knowledge of
                   good and evil anyway?
                   we only ever tasted evil.]
so long ago now that it’s crossed the
threshold between memory and dream.
                   [was any of it ever real?]

There was never any hope of us turning back,
because that’s the way time drags us -
inexorably forward.
                   [merciless god!]

But I have been watching,
my love,
as we trudge this endless, dry dust:
I have watched suns rise,
and stars rise,
and moons rise,

And I have been thinking,
my darling -

I have been thinking that we must keep walking,
Because it seems to me
this infinite space
Is perhaps a circle,

And the further away we wander,
The closer to home we come.

Spend your day restraining moth and rust;
I'll spend mine subduing child-woes and dust.
But tonight,
tonight, my darling,
let's sneak back into The Garden
and try to remember what it is like
not to have to hold back anything at all.

Do you remember?

Do you remember, I wonder,
What it was like outside?

How we’d stand there,
Our arms around each other,
Our faces pressed against the thick, sound-muffling glass?

Peering in with longing,
Ears straining to pick up something, anything -
Any little clue as to what it was like to be inside.

Inside with them -
The eating, drinking, laughing ones -
The ones bathed in the warm golden light.

Outside it was cold. And it could have been lonely,
But we had each other -
And we huddled together -
And we made our own warmth.

But now, Golden Girl,
You’re inside.
You’re theirs.
You eat, drink, laugh -

You glow.

And once in a while you look up.
And you wave.

It’s wonderful in here, you mouth,
See how wonderful it is?
See how they love me?
How they want me?

I do see.

And I feel the cold.
And the loneliness.
And the lack of your arms around me.

Colder,
Lonelier,
I look for different routes to walk.
Routes that don’t take me past windows.