-
mitigating
1.
this morning, gumboots on
because the dew grass
will soak my socks in sturdy shoes
long before i reach the gate,
even if i don’t slow to see the garden
strung and jeweled
with spider silk and night cool.to the south, beyond the hills
the ocean gasps and sighs against cliffs,
washes the beach of whelk scrawl
i will never get to read.the black horse waits at the gate as he does.
he has slipped his field again
found foot hold through the forested valley
on a trail made by feet much smaller than his.
i have tracked him by daylight to see where he walks –
ducking below branches, stepping around trunks,
following contour paths along the steep valley
to come out on the ridge beyond my mother’s house
leaving hoof prints in the soft dirt road.there is something mythic about it all
the black horse walking the night forest
while the sleepers sleep,
but on waking its meaning eludes me
and the horse at the gate
is warm grass breath and patience –
messenger of the gods he may well be,
but the horsemen of the apocalypse
are riding far more brazen steeds.2.
my left foot slides along the seam of granite
finding its way below the smooth flow surface of the water
right foot stepping rock to rock above the surface
hands grapple grip the crossing,
the water dark and waiting
gasp cold pulling to the sea.the ravine walls here are deep with millennia
pocketed by sand floored caves
holding imprints of animals
and others who visit in silence
chewing on air thick and delicious with the sacred –
bones humming hallelujah for the earth that lives.whether it was human or otter
that cracked the crab
on the slab of rock river’s edge,
consumed the flesh while searching the sky
that lives a few hours in sunlight
between the tall cliff walls
is no matter to the river.
both could fall,
crack their animal bones
be consumed by the crabs
and the river.3.
in dreams
in the city
the apocalypse had always been
the empty streets.
no-one.
only my car
casting its small shadow
on the morning road
R44 to N2 towards the mountains,
driving away away
as far as the fuel in my tank would take me
waking up without managing to leave4.
so we ate naartjies along the way
facing the deep pool water
and the vine trailed cliffs up river.
you from your bag and i from mine
because for now we know nothing
about living this pandemic
and when social distancing
is distance enough
or how not to share the virus
when sharing our food
or whether we die
for lack of touch.5.
somedays the news
reads like a dystopian fiction
about a future or planet not ours.
images and words clothed and fleshed
not by the living
but by an idea of the world
that we can cope with.
a shudder story of the world
that we can still fall asleep to.6.
in the garden
winter seeds unfurl
oblivious,
pea tendrils reach
for the light7.
the middens are deep
on the floor of these caves
a history that speaks shell and shard
carried for generations on this path
between ocean and here
skin sack of oysters
perhaps some roots.
which day was the last
they walked this path.
did they know by then
their world had ended.8.
in the house is a silence
deeper than black water river pools
beneath moss hewn cliffs.
a spider on silk outside the window
crosses tree to tree
casting a scritting shadow
across my page.
the day slides back into existence
somewhere a rooster crows
and fly on the pane
cleans a lazy antennae
takes flight.
this is real
all of it
(we are still here)
In response to the weekly prompt Vast Particulars at Eathweal.
https://earthweal.com/2020/05/18/earthweal-weekly-challenge-vast-particulars/
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harrow
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 lifeless –but prayers remember their makers
remember their hips and feet
dust on the temple floors,
remember lips that curve and hum
hands that hold and cup
and plant prayers
like a seed
like a hope
like a forgiveness.the roof of the chapel sags now
with the deadweight of your sky god
grown fat on stolen harvests
and pillaged wealth.
they will fall
these temporary erections
to a god who never came.
even when people were bought and sold,
tortured, left tongueless in his name,
even then he never came.
never smited or punished
never said not in my name
will you destroy my creation.and when the meek defended
their inherited earth –
the walls shook
with the laughter of the sky god
as they were trodden underfoot
paving new roads to the west
with the bodies of heathens.and don’t come to me
with you taming the savages
we cleansed the earth bullshit –
human sacrifice still exists
in the exalted marble halls
of corporate capitalism,
a price per kilometer
to drop a mine shaft in africa
plummet to the centre
paid for in human lives –
a collateral damage expected
but rarely owned.sometimes late nights
or perhaps over tea
the loose tongues
of retired mine engineers
name the price
speak the horror
that weighs their souls
heavy
and what it really means
to the miners on shift
to be worth your weight in gold.this has been our perilous chapter
since the first witch was drowned
by the light of a waning moon.
burned, hands bound and naked
in the village square, by priests
who feared not the wrath of god
but the scorching touch of the goddess
that beat her drum in the heart
of every woman,
the gods of stone and river and tree
that would take their priestly promise
of eternal stagnation and let them rot
body and soul devoured by hungry soil
to live again animal, mineral, vegetable
enlivened by that which always was
eternal.what then of human endeavour
if all that we become is a handful of worms,
some words to feed the birds
and the light that slants
gold through trees
touching iridescent on her wingsor the wild boar
who harrowed the fields
long before we dreamed it.Linking in to the weekly challenge at Earthweal.
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re-visioning
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 neededyelped at first breath
of this new world
that already we loved
but somehow
glitch in the system
we had forgotten why
and some of us had mothers
to remind us of love
and some of us
had more perilous journeys
but one day, no matter the age,
when the wind blew
and light shifted between trees
or we held a seed in our hand
or touched rich soil
among the new unfurled
and felt that life
beneath the skin of the earth
and something stirred
a memory flashed
and for a moment we knew
we were born for this
and we ached with an impatience
longing for what would be.some amongst us
remembered young
cool nights
children singing in a circle
in the kitchen because
the house is so jammed
with their living that there
is no other floor space
eight, ten voices
rising and falling
windows and hearts
open to the night
and there
in the centre of the circle
the vision livedsome of us would break first
with the disjoint
of a spluttering earth
the hunger, the wars,
the illogical destruction
and relentless stupidity of ecocide –
the word apocalypse slipping
into everyday speak
until hollow and unliving
we sit in the blue flicker light
of a telling of the world
that will surely
be the death of us
and somewhere outside the window
there is a sound almost familiar
half heard in the noise of the world
and strength of titans
you lean forward in your chair
find the remote
switch off the tv
and in the silence that buzzes
you wait breath held
until the bird outside your window
sings once more
and you remember
that you have forgotten something
and it lives like a hunger
waiting to be fed.perhaps there was no glitch
this vision belongs
to the doing of flesh and bone
the muscle memory of beating hearts
pushing blood seeped in oxygen breathed by trees
our remembering and future held,
synapse flash silver on river water,
by each fragment of shell and rock
become sand beneath our feet.
our words are shaped
plosive and fricative
in the soft of our mouth
formed by the silence
between sound,
but it is who we are
when our speaking
knows our silence
that remembers us.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
and truly this could be
last light of day
time to remember
why we came.For Earthweal’s weekly challenge
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what returns
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 stoppedwhen 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 roughened hide
through a world we had forgotten
was inhabited.like a bud
like a season
like a forest
like the moon
like a seed
turned sapling
stretching in the light,
life returns.
-
where albertus slept
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 men
serving in north africa and italy
his mother never forgave him,
that branch of the family tree
remaining severed.it was a small room
one door one window
deep shadows
a bed a bench
a buckskin on the floor.sometimes he would sit outside
in his yellow morris chair in the sun
sipping black moerkoffie
from a saucer held in shaking hands.
he smoked a pipe
sniffed snuff from his thumb-joint.he told us about the war sometimes
my brother and i –
about caves in north africa
that had acted as barracks for both sides.
grim stories of corpses and the bitter biting cold
and trains and towns with strange names
and strange songs.
we hung on those words
traipsing across continents
breathless.he grew grapes on a trellis on a sunny wall
felt the weather in his bones
predicting rain by the ache in his knees.he said grace in high dutch
at the dark polished table
big enough for sunday lunch
high ceilinged with fine china
a stern wife and seven children.
sometimes and christmas
my brother and i would sit among them
cousins everywhere
and still the table was big enough
and oupa would pretend to choke on his pudding –
pull a two rand note from his mouth
a ransom to us in those days
and we loathe to eat the brandy soaked confection
vigorously doused it with custard
spooned it in, finding nothing
but small coins amongst the laughter
until his wife would say
that’s enough now albert
and the table would quiet down
and the dishes carried awayalone he would return to his room
off the back of the house
where he slept as always
with his door open to the stars
perhaps as he had
when he was a boy in the karoo
herding sheep on the open plains
in a smaller world
with a bigger sky. -
cleaning out gulleys in the rain
with mud soaked leaf hands
we greet the sodden sky
gulping mouthfuls
of drizzle cloudfrom the road
down the driveway
water snakes and froths
its way to the contour ponds
brimming now
with new rain
and frogsong. -
5. Mammals/poets/fish
found a poet last night
late in a quiet house
devoured poem after poem,
like a bird like
the shoals of big-eyed moonfish
like a mongoose slipping into undergrowth –
you don’t want to see those alone.
you want to call and point
say there the wing
catching light,
see there they flash silver
in dark water as they turn –
you want to shape those words
sound them with shared breath
you don’t want to find them alone. -
among the living
it was my plan all along to lie down there among the twigs and fallen leaves,
let the forest have me
because there is something in my bones that does not know these days
can’t taste the sunlight or feel vast oceans pulse in the night.
three days now the snail has been sleeping on that leaf through my window,
it is not winter, none of it is making sense
and we can’t and we can’t and we can’t remember
how we came here, how we built these worlds and walls around us
how our lies become our stories and
our stories became stones that paved into roads,
piled into wall and hut and temple. big stories like pillars
holding a roof over our heads so we can’t see the sky
and the stars can’t speak –
a roof to keep the rain from touching our twitch animal skin
lest we remember who we are. we know that we are tired
we know all this will fall like leaves to the forest floor.it was my plan all along to walk until my feet wanted,
to find a root that curls around my body, a parasol touched with light
and lie down there among the twigs and fallen leaves
and let the forest have me
and if it happens the sky is blue enough to be seen
like a reflection on still water between the trees
or thin pond mist grey wisping on high winds
i will watch dark shadow birds, wing fingers spread to carve sky paths
above the canopy, knowing their backs are feather painted by the sun
and i will untangle the bramble from my hem, pull thorns from my hair
and lie down there among the twigs and fallen leaves
and let the forest have me.
and when black butterflies wake because morning has come slowly
(do they sleep? do they remember in dream life before wings?
if imaginal discs hold potential do they hold memory too?)
when black butterflies wake, turn their folded wings from leaf to flight
to dance hover circles in unexpected shafts of light
i will be there silent stone among the roots of the tree
and the birds might move around me speaking summer voices
like pebbles tapped together underwater –breaking the surface to gulp laughter instead of air
and you speaking flowers
saying life is nectar
while river salt dried on your skin
and all was fractal and light spilling sweetness
until even the mud between our toes sang of beauty.and no matter that it passed as summers do,
the river still flows deep dark to the sea without me –
the kingfishers have fledged, skimming their impossible malachite flight
less than a breath above the water.
i love them no less for not seeing them,
not seeing those golden leaves fall turn spin to touch the still surface –
drifting small boat, stem sterns to the ocean.
summer will come again and we will walk once more among the living
reading stories with fluent fingers across their tall bark –
taking breaths so deep they burst shudder from our mouths
that can speak no more than i love you and thank you.it was my plan all along to come here
to lie among the fallen leaves and twigs of autumn
to give myself to you
breath, blood and bone
again and always
here.
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april harvest
there is nothing
to be said
of what was
or might be
on days like these
when the tang
sweet of summer
leans light into autumn
and fruit hangs full round
on the trees.
Tamarillos full ripe on the trees today. -
learning the shape of things
there were big windows, wooden floors
and an indoor quiet that made our ears hum.
it was monday morning
after a favourite uncle’s birthday
on the weekend
i had made him a card
drawn flowers because he like them
copied in my newly acquired hand
Dear Les
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Love Lindi
it took me most of saturday
each letter a task
down up around and down swish
change colour
around up and back down swish
ended with a flourish
a loop, a flick –
he loved it.back in the quiet hum of the class
i applied my new skills to the page
finishing a whole row of a’s and m’s
with tails turning up, dotting the i’s with flowers.
time passed in focussed silence
punctuated by the rattle of pencils on desks
and the slow steady click of the minute hand moving.
final flourish on the bottom
of a well pleased page
flower flower
doneafter break teacher called me to her desk –
we all loved her
with her golden curls and lipsticked smile.
my book was open on the morning’s work
i nearly crowed with imminent reward
those gold stars we got to wear
on our foreheads.
what is this, she asked
and i oblivious
told her of my uncle les and the birthday card andno, she said
this is wrong, she said
i don’t ever want to see this again,
understand
i thought they looked nice, i said
and surely even then i should have known better
but it was my first year at school
and i still had much to learn.i held out my almost six year old hand
on command as i had seen
other children do before
so you remember she said.
turns out the long arm of the law
had painted nails and a gold link bracelet
and knew how to apply a ruler
to the unruly.back at my desk
i sat on my hand
to cool the burn
i did not cry.