My grandfather’s ashes atop this morning’s dew

Unyielding dust filled with collected memories

Hidden under the gazing African sun

A dance that leaves one empty-a matador’s dance with a bull

But for what?  A covenant with the unwilling?

Or perhaps to placate the heavens  

I remember waiting for my grandfather to tell me

The tales of life before the drought

And the accompanying strangers

Would they ever leave? I asked

The silence that followed answered

With the whispers

Early in the morning we walked towards the river

With banana leaves whistling our praises

We bathed in the cold waters imbued by warm blood

In the distance the ancestors sang,

“the torch bearers of tomorrow have come, make way”

And so begun the journey

The year grandfather took me to the big fig tree

His tired eyes beneath a wrinkled forehead

Did his voice belie his sorrow

Or was it soothing my troubled youth?

As we sat between the gigantic roots sticking out like knuckles

Clinging on to every word we dared not say

He took my shaking hand in his firm withered grip

His finger nails the colors of untold stories of a life

A spirit tormented but strong

In the distance a shooting star

Saluting my grandfather

Who left shortly after, to follow

As the darkness crept around us

Grandpa, his eyes now closed

The moon’s shimmering dance in the skies

Invited the chorus back into my father’s house

Where we embraced and I, I slowly

Became a man.