Mother Africa

 Africa is a strange place:

when the long winter that blew from Pretoria thawed

there was a stand of  Schotia afra

 – the finest I know –

that flowered, every tree,

summer and winter:

clusters of red tangled among curled pods all that year

like some Golden Age

– fruit and flower always together

as I’ve never known them,

 as if the earth were rejoicing;

 but then, in English the tree’s the karoo boer-bean;

 and in that season when the heirs of men who took horse agin Kitchener

 saw the last dream of the Boer Republics

 melt like mist

 the trees wept blood,

 strewed beans kommandos once foraged in fugitive hunger

 like manna:

 Africa has a heart that knows us all

 – despite everything.    

 - Norman Morrissey

 rivier en son

soos rivierstrome moeiteloos

oor klip stroom

stroom die frases van musiek deur

die ravyne van tyd

kalwe dit my siel uit in

diep holtes waarin

die melodieë soos helder waterpoele blink

as die musiek nie speel nie

is dit soos droogte

en kan die dorre rivierbeddings nie meer wag

vir die feesvierende frases

om uit die wolke te breek

en die honger holtes van ons ore

te verkwik met salwende harmonieë

suiwer suiwer suiwer mag ons siele bly

in die versuiwerende klank van musiek

die klank kolk oor my

en soos ‘n bedrewe toornaar

trek hy my siel van binne na buite

en voel ek hoe die musiek soos die son

seëninge oor my lyf uitspreek

- Lara Kirsten

Our Home

                  

Each day,

our home settles down

to the nest it's making

out under the far-flung

star-hung

immensities

as the mountains breathe

on the deodars

and the house-lights

glimmer

like a glow-worm

in a meadow.

 - Norman Morrissey

ek draai in sirkels met oë wa-wyd oop

ek draai in sirkels met oë wa-wyd oop

totdat ek kind-naar word

ek wil oefen om al die objekte in die draai-kolk

met sekuurheid raak te kan eien

ek sien 'n wit-glans boud met poësie opgeskryf

 - iewers het neruda ook 'n sê gehad - 

die jong seun kyk af met 'n afstandelikheid na 

die groen artisjokke

onder my gryp die weefsels van die mat 

my stewig aan die sole

hy vermoed ek gaan heel waarskynlik binnekort omtiep

in duiseligheid

maar ek kan nie ophou draai en kyk

dit is grasdakke en houtpale wat elke keer teen

ander hoeke in my oog val

en dan is daar die sagte kopkussings

en die blink kasdeure

wat soos halva en kakao-poeier inmekaar smelt

my ooglede wil nou swaar toeval

maar ek hou aan

asof ek die marathon hardloop
en beide die grieke en romeine wil oortref in prestasie

 - Lara Kirsten

            Lord of Life

                        (For Harry Owen)

There was an old White rhino bull

who'd lived for years in a huge boma

where I'd go

to sit and write

– back to a fence-post;

and one day

I felt this vast breath on my neck

and a head like a wheelbarrow

ducked between the old elevator cables of the fence,

nudged my shoulder.

So I sat

– scared to break the spell –

while he rested his horn-crowned head

beside me,

fine, furrowed, crepe-like skin

laid

companionably

against my bare arm.

I held my breath,

but he felt – as they do at peace –

so like a great horse

I ventured a hand up

to touch his restful ears,

tickled them gently

so he canted towards me

and closed his eyes

in bliss.

It became a ritual,

whenever I was around in the Reserve

we'd visit,

he'd come when I'd settled to my notebook

and we'd share our warm blood

in simple liking to be together, I guess:

I read him more than one

fledging  poem

– and his quiet gravity saved me, I'm sure

many a vanity or vagueness of phrase,

he silently mentored me

for more than a year

with his antiquity of idiom

and gigantic,

seasoned gentleness.

I moved on, he must be dead now;

but his calm, alert being at my elbow

often has haunted me,

stood pondering at my shoulder as I've written

(like Chaucer or Shakespeare or Yeats

will do)

– shaming all silliness out of me.

I am most lucky:

I could take my chance

with one

of the lords

of life.   

 -  Norman Morrissey

Cefani

I come away knowing
the calls of Pied Kingfishers

and Great White Heron.

21^st May 2015

 - Silke Heiss

die ambisie van die gedig is so indringerig

dit laat my nie toe om oor te

gee aan ‘n sukkelary nie

so waaragtige astrante houding

het hierdie woordkuns!

ek probeer my skaar met

‘n hardvogtigheid

probeer ander kant toe kyk

maar nee! die kleine lettertjies

kom sit met alle mag

so grieselig in my kop

en kom lek hier by my vingers uit

 - Lara Kirsten

It Is Music

The poet may not

visit her son

at his house,

because

she is

the ex-wife.

Two hours’ drive away

she has to live. No job. No money.

She must make her own arrangements.

Old family friends

offer her their daughter’s bed.

Amélie’s sleeping out tonight

and of course Kai can come

for supper.

The poet makes pizza for all.

A host of little ones

look on

the kneading, knocking down and rolling,

their questions climbing,

reaching, their declarations

sharing, all their funny voices

building

space

she’s lost,

been denied without a choice.

‘You’re not a part of the family.’

To be cast out –

there’s nothing worse

for a maternal creature.

Kai’s voice threads into the fabric

his low pitch she knows

beneath the children, and the older son,

with whom he’s playing at the screen,

and the char’s toddler Ouinene

has so much with raised eyebrows to say

and says it, incomprehensibly, gesturing firmly.

The friend, mother Ilse, sighs –

‘All this noise. I don’t know where

my thoughts begin and end.’

‘That’s what I long for,’ says the poet,

‘in the silence I have been condemned to;

although I know you’ve sometimes too much din.’

‘We don’t appreciate our blessings,’

replies Ilse, laughing, thinking.

The women’s voices run

slowly between those of their sons

and the children

and

it

is

music.

16^th May 2015

 - Silke Heiss