A basket of love poems

In the spirit of Valentine's day, Ecca Poet Silke Heiss collected a variety of love poems from the Ecca Poets. Herewith the selection.

Catch him

As the mists at last clear,

a robin comes to the troughed aloe leaves

to drink.

 

You can’t see him from your seat

– splashing, sipping, flipping away –

so I write this poem

 

to catch him

for

you.

 

– Norman Morrissey

 

(published in To the Far Horizon, Hogsback: 2015) 

 

Namibia

 

Pitched camp. And the mopani bush is quiet;

the evening still, the clouds adrift –

the first clouds we have seen these two weeks.

You have taken the kids out to see the cheetah

at the research centre: some breeding project

for an endangered species. I sit amongst our things,

with day’s heat setting in the west,

a Windhoek beer a-downing for my thirst:

I’ve worked up quite a heat, pitching the tent,

in this desert land, spreading our sleeping gear,

laying out a meal, for you and the boys. 

Ah, my love, you are encamped in the fenced

wilderness of my heart. Our place is made. 

Come home now, and rest. Love is such a rare,

endangered beast, we must deliberately protect,

so that coming generations may know.

 

– Brian Walter

 

(published in Brood, Ecca Poets, Hogsback: 2010)

 

For Clara, 19 months

Language is an envelope:

inside it you might find

a tiger, a dragonfly,

or a smooth river pebble.

 

By now

your own naming of the world

is gathering pace like a river . . .

 

Just when the sound of the words

“Mond” and “Sterne”*

became, for you, moon and stars,

I do not know,

 

but there is wonder

in your eyes and your face

as you look to the sky and say

“Mond”, “Sterne”.

 

You are the bright star

in my universe,

and a moon, too, often in flux.

 

Together with your mother

we form a triangle, a clan,

a constellation.

 

In the years to come,

whatever they will bring,

may your light keep reaching me

just as it does now.

 

– Ed Burle

 

(published in What It Is, Ecca Poets, Plettenberg Bay: 2020)

__________

*“Mond” and “Sterne” should be heard according to their German pronounciation, i.e. ‘mawnd’ and ‘shtahne’ (‘a’ as in ‘glad’)

 

Each day its reverence

Waking

into my consciousness,

gradually re-kindling my flame,

 

I want to press

my forehead

against your shoulder –

 

innoculate

by touch of pulse

your tissue, vapour, fragrance

against whatever dangers.

 

Ah, Love, let us protect each other

from those moments in our selves

that do not sing –

 

let tender touch of skin on skin

to each day

its reverence bring.

 

– Silke Heiss

 

(published in Greater Matter, Poetree Publications, Johannesburg: 2019)

 

jou borskas

        vir Kim

 

jou borskas is die perfekte houvas
soos 'n warm rotswand waarteen ek hoër en hoër uitklim

my hart spring met 'n swier uit my ribbes
en kom lê polsend teen jou bors

jou sternum smelt weg
my hart skop nes teen joune

in rooi, nat ekstase 

 

– Lara Kirsten

 

(published in Alles is Anders, Ecca Poets, Knysna: 2021)

 

Caving

 

There is music

in the way you say my name

 

sounds of Coldplay

ringing in the air

reminiscing your hands up my shirt

bent over literature,

philosophy

and cups of cold coffee

in our cave

 

Where our bodies share secrets

and our minds made love

to childhood foes

and grown up dreams,

not knowing

if tomorrow holds enough books

to keep our story alive.

 

– Alvené Appollis-du Plessis

 

Love Fury

 

Today the world is coming through the walls again –

through our computer speakers, declaring

that doom is imminent, insisting

that we are turning the earth into a fire –

 

just like the one I used to imagine, burning

on and on into eternity

when I was a Protestant boy.

 

Today it came to me: what if

that vision was accurate? Maybe I’ll find myself

one of these days, in a long line

headed for extreme weather. I don’t know.

 

All I have to exchange with you,

to set down here against the likelihood

of apocalypse as night falls,

is this clear image: the two of us

standing side by side

this day six years ago,

when we promised to surrender

to a different, slower burning,

to offer ourselves up to a different fire.

 

So I’ll be on board when they say

we must cut down on emissions.

When they ask us to leave smaller footprints

of carbon on the earth, I’ll sign up,

or at least sign the petition.

But there’s a secret, sustaining

fire I keep close to me,

guarding an inner space science has not named;

and I guard it every day so it doesn’t collapse,

so the world won’t keep growing smaller inside my chest.

 

 Now, as opinions harden, as feeling

and thought are both blunted from misuse,

may I always carry with me

these traces of our fiery pilgrimage.

May something in me remember

how to be molten, to remain

hot and excessive, in tune

with things hidden under the earth;

willing to change my shape

to contain this old love fury

that makes and unmakes us every day.

 

– Jacques Coetzee

 

Green tomatoes

for Sheila

 

“… apart from that

the house remains the same

since you have gone. I suspect

the clock has stopped in sympathy

with silence, cars at night

on the Alice road, pass,

a distance slower.

I couldn’t find the bread-knife,

bought some rolls instead

(the shop lady said they

would keep forever if I freeze them).

The man from East London came

about upholstering,

I said we’d have to wait and see …

He left his card “in case”.

O’ Yes, I almost forgot, surprise, surprise!

I pulled the curtains back

to watch the rain, hey presto,

there they were, blushing in rows,

the green tomatoes

you left to ripen.

P.S.

When are you coming home?”

 

– Cathal Lagan

 

(published in Sandbird, Alice, Lovedale Press: 1999)