Edging in

New in town,
during lockdown,
we watch the birds.

Give them water to bathe in,
scrape and flush away their poo,
and all the pecked-at fruit.

Water our peas, radishes, cabbage,
lettuces, rocket, dill –
not everything has germinated,
but still.

I go swimming on the quiet,
and when the regulations lift,
you fish: catch lunch,
and supper.

Wildflowers
in the vase
on the table.

We’re edging in
on the ecosystem here –

it’s getting used
to us.

– Silke Heiss, 5th June 2020

The mother riddle 

I will always be a daughter to each mother
in a way I will never belong to the other
and yet in my head
and heart
they collapse into each other
until it is difficult to tell them or myself apart.

The wound
and the salt
each driving the flesh to part
and bare the bone. 

- Olwethu Mxoli


Sharing Grief

“I’m sorry.”
These words are hollow and inadequate
but they are all I have to offer.
That and hope. And prayer.

Each day announces another death
another person too sick to visit
and there’s only so much compassion
the phone can carry safely and whole to the other side.

This is a terrible emptiness
the inability to offer the comfort of a body
simply sitting next to another
sharing grief.

- Olwethu Mxoli

For hours and hours

Cold came. Rain fell.
The poles you painted purple
glowed. We spoke.

– Silke Heiss, 29th June 2020


In no hurry for spring

In the Norfolk pine –
three sacred ibis
a-doze, at sunrise.

– Silke Heiss, 2nd July 2020


On the road

Across it, he gallops –
with his silky coat,
which the wind blows,
and the sun catches

– the baboon,
between hairless, zooming cars.

– Silke Heiss, 21st July 2020