1.when i was old enough to counti would count the raftersand beams in churchsitting on wooden benchesswinging legs too short to touch the floorlistening to the prayers and hymnsthe droning sermons of father so and soor father so and soand in amongst the twenty-six twenty-seventwenty-eight stand up kneel ameni realised this god, this churchcould not…
1it is not likegod could waitwhile wewove clothof hope and flax,a seasons growingto make thewarp and weftof prayer. 2thirteen ravensflew the sky,i don’t rememberwhy i counted. 3there was no predictingthe turning of the wheelyet i held the lucky numbersticky in church fair handwaving it wildlywaist high to the crowdwaiting to claim my prize. 4i cut…
in these times of rapid change and covid-19, with the youngest doing zoom for school, the lack of daily commute has yielded quiet mornings waking late to winter light softing the forest into focus. this morning came cresting the hill hot pink between black branches – we went to find the sun, my daughter and…
it is a tall orderto write all that is wrongwhen the sun riseson a world that is perfect this morning, a delicious stillnessafter the nights storming rain,cold and blue the sky aches clearwhile i walk the gardencheck on goats and gates,no trees down, contour ponds fulland rain canals running clearafter yesterday’s blustery cleanupin hopeful anticipation.…
1.this morning, gumboots onbecause the dew grasswill soak my socks in sturdy shoeslong before i reach the gate,even if i don’t slow to see the gardenstrung and jeweledwith spider silk and night cool. to the south, beyond the hillsthe ocean gasps and sighs against cliffs,washes the beach of whelk scrawli will never get to read.…
what of these chapels perilous or not that were built on the charred bodies of women – chapels that harnessed and yoked the prayers of the earth in service of a sky god that knew nothing of women like volcanoes who burned with the making of mountains long before these insipid fires licked them…
and of course we were made for this came as heroes hair billowing in the slow-motion wind last light of day casting us in gold and shadow, we were made for this and we came, all of us, because it was time and we were what was needed yelped at first breath of this…
the moon grows full in an april sky and still the world is quiet – humans gone to roost a great clattering noise of centuries suddenly stopped when hope returned to the city streets it came with claw and hoof and webbed toes scrabbling on the pavement. it padded and clattered patterned fur and…
my oupa lived in the outside room of his large house. he had grown up in sutherland under the vast karoo skies before the observatory was built there herded sheep as a boy before the wars changed the world – despite his ancestry and the complexity of south african colonial politics he joined churchill’s…
with mud soaked leaf hands we greet the sodden sky gulping mouthfuls of drizzle cloud from the road down the driveway water snakes and froths its way to the contour ponds brimming now with new rain and frogsong.