Blue sky over Barcelona

The first thing you see
on ascending the stairs leading out of the metro
is the blue sky over Barcelona –

sky that is rinsed in the dark blue face
of the sea, sky that touches
the sleeping branches of trees, the coloured spirals
of the Sagrada Familia.

Your heart is hungry, in search of a dream,
your heart is weary, emptied of dreams.

Sun today, that finds your skin,
pours its radiance over the city.

This voice that is yours, that is
someone else’s
(someone you’re yet to be, are becoming).

Whatever it is you’re looking for
isn’t to be found here,

but for now you are here, and for now
nothing is clear except for
the blue sky over Barcelona.

 - Eduard Burle

New moon night

A chosen man’s breath
on my arm,
frogs and cicadas quiet.

- Silke Heiss, 30 January 2025


Sunshine poem
For Ed and Jacques

Little, legless braai-stand-not,
seated on broken bricks,
weighted with drizzle-infused ash,

beside a blue wheelbarrow
filling up with water,
while waiting for the sunshine
of its very own poem.

 - Silke Heiss, 19 December 2024

ag nee, geitjies sterf ook

ek maak my venster oop

en op die vensterbank val
'n piepklein geitjie
                            gekwes

hy het seker in 'n gleufie skuiling gevind
en toe ek hierdie oomblik kies
om die venster oop te maak
                             knyp
die raam deur
sy dun lyfie
etlike lewenstrillings flits deur sy selle
en skielik net so stil
net so
                            dood

sy lyfie so weerloos en klein
my skrik so bitter en groot
alle klammigheid in my mond verdwyn
my oë dartel wild oor die kortstondige lewensboog
waarin hierdie brose wesentjie in
hierdie klein hoekie
van die aardbol gestraal het

'n halfuur later kom ek terug
om seker te maak die geitjie is nog daar
en dalk wonderbaarlik weer opgestaan het

                          maar nee
'n hele spul reuse miere
oortrek sy lyfie en
                         verlustig
hulself aan alles wat
hom eens laat beweeg het

die skok trek my platter
hoe gou so polsende kleinood
                         oplos tot in
die onpolsende
                         niet

 - Lara Kirsten

Stone-people prayer

Two rocks, in reverence,
eyes closed, necks bowed,
fists held close in prayer,
facing golden sand,
the long evening rays flocking
towards their lack of feet,
their statued selves,
stuck here,
solid in their thanks.

 -  Silke Heiss, 20 January 2025

stil lewe

ek het weer so siek geword in my longe

slapelose nagte
verstarde en moeë dae
bolyf en borskas so seer

vandag so laagtepunt bereik
geen fisieke of kop krag

ek sien niks veel raak nie
ek is in so sieke dwaal
dit wat ek wel sien lyk faal

      maar
daar was
een     enkele
objek
wat my aandag verwonderd vasgehou het:

'n leë
consol
glas pot

die manier hoe sy net daar so     geruisloos
in die oggendlig staan en      blink in
haar glassigste glassigheid

ek sit op die vloer en bly kyk en kyk na haar
'n eenvoudige glas pot

ek hoef nie eens aan haar te vat nie
sy is werkliker as werklik
meer betroubaar as my hart en my kop
sy die hoopvolste stil lewe in
my bestaan vandag

die poëtiese misterie:
hoe verruk ek staan teenoor
hierdie
     harde
         helder
              deursigtige
passieloosheid van glas

 - Lara Kirsten

Mentoring
for Nasru-Dee

The great trees at the bottom of his garden,
sentinels of these seminal hours,
rooting a human soul into community
by means of letters sounding out
alphabets far, far beyond Babel.

The only towers here are the pine,
the poplar, the spruce, planted for love of shade,
thriving in a vale where the decades raised them
to stand tall.

They talk, crawl, with all the time in the world
through the cadences of a love poem,
add words slowly, change them around,
insert the musical notation of punctuation,

and he drinks the mystic tuition
he’s effortlessly drawing out of her,
while she floats in an element so watery and airy,
so near the happy sun, yet barefoot on the earth,
she hardly recognises herself,
the sureness of her voice,
as if it’s always been here, this oneness,
meditating and conceiving
an evergreen sap of being

here, here where their voices mingle with their thoughts,
shared for now, and always,
bringing forth his art
by a magical midwifery
that leaves them both
reverent and humbled.

Silke Heiss, 18 January 2025

in sy oë

        dit is koud vanaand in kaapstad 

die bedelaar soek 'n stuk warmte in
sy kartonbed
sy mond is hard soos
die betonmure
wat oral
om
hom
oprys
maar in sy oë
sien ek iets van sy siel skyn soos
'n perdeblom wat
deur
die krake
breek

in his eyes

        it is cold this night in cape town
the beggar hungers for a piece of warmth
in his cardboard bed
his mouth is hard like
the concrete walls
that
rises
all
around
him
but in his eyes
i see something of his soul shine out
like a dandelion
breaking
through
the cracks

 - Lara Kirsten

Step to the bridge

You step to the bridge
to say good-bye to the
Drakensberg lily in flower.

One bloom’s wilted on the cluster,
four are open to the sun,
four buds still nestling.
Their fullness I’ll likely not see,
as they’ll probably be done on my return.

I turn to go, when suddenly a body
of fragrance
circles my face, anointing
my awareness. I stop,
step down, obedient, from the planks
into the leaf-mould, soft, dark soil
and put my nose between
the white stamens dancing
in the rosy trumpet
of petals. Inhale and hear
in the odour the sweetness of a language
I’m given to compose
in this moment reaching over
between two species, lines that arc
from lily heart to human heart,
one beating, both brimming
with living relatedness.

 - Silke Heiss, 14 January 2025