RUGS DRYING ON THE ROOF

And from the quarter of the elders, nothing;
still so much to be told after them;
their origination in the hidden ways.

And it was this I thought of, for some reason,
weeks later we’d pulled
the rug from her room and scrubbed hard
all afternoon then pulled it dripping again
high to the slant of the roof, resting after that
on the apex passing loose draws you’d said but
this is how I’d want to remember her,
this township I mean. If anything

May she always retain this nakedness,
May she always be free of things.

Everywhere around us many houses lay back
hearts turned outward and sunlight
spread over a treeless vastscape of slanted roofs.

Sharpeville, 1983 Notes



MEDITATIONS ON THE OLD LAND

The old land is not what we maybe
Suppose. It is not a place, not
Strictly. It is actually
A brown face you look into slowly
When you bend over a puddle
Beside the road home. It changes
When you point to it.




INSIDE THE HOUSE

We’ve had three hot nights in succession,
Strange this time of year, this far south,
And this always has been a violent land.

Flames are the blood of agitated night stars
That just can’t wait no more
And Jerry came by briefly tonight,
Legs crossed on the sofa beside the wireless,
Suddenly unrecognisable to us
And speaking of comrades and detainees
And the envisaged self of “my people”.
Kept on and on about “my people”
“my people”, fourteen years old,
Left arm stretched out on the sofa’s neck.

A precipitous night, Mabatho
Held my hand tight and would not cease
Shaking her head, crying out finally these
Are not our days Jerry ngwana’ka,
We have nothing, nothing, not even illusions.
M’jereza would not hear it.
Rushing past to the door he’d glanced down
And I said be still and live, live, dammit.

But night stars are my companions now old man,
He cried out, dragging the bottom door
Against the kitchen floor,
Leapt into the night over back-opposite fences.

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