Fruity Flowers to Myself
Heart is in my mouth.
Part for fear, another with grief
This soil moulded me,
Its familiar grittiness embraces my feet
As I hurriedly step lightly, rapid
paces not schelping
I make quick my distance from my origin
in haste to my promise of green.
I do not kiss the soil
I do not take a stone and hide it in my palm
for remembrance.
I am a prodigal, seeking my path to a distant pledge
Not looking back,
as the warm tendrils of my mother’s earth slowly unravel
from my body and I embrace the frost of a strange mother.
I place my feet gently, gingerly on this grey earth.
There are no rich blacks and browns here to stain my feet
I kiss the earth
I take a blade of grass and chew
for acquaintance.
I am an embracer of this new thing, this new feeling
This new fear that slowly clasps its chains around me
as it claims my soul, my hands, my heart to grieve,
in shame at my dissolute ways, my headlong race to forget
the source of my identity.
I look back,
letting the stolen memories of my mother’s heat waft to me
from other women’s cooking pots
I seek the green embrace of my home in the clasp of others.
I hunt for unconditional acceptance in the eyes of every warm skin
I pass in the streets.
The cold wraps around my tender feet as my toes try to recall
the heat of that homeland soil.
The eye of my heart sheds a solitary tear, it rolls and lies quiet
at the bottom of my belly, its sting reminds me of who I once was.
Its salty trail tells me who I am now and its journey asks me
who I still wish to be.
Heart in my mouth
Part with grief, another for fear.
I wish to be moulded again.


Ourstory
Ko ko ko
It’s hovering in the air above us
This silence clamouring for our words
Shh! Listen and raise your hands
Palm upwards, be kissed by the freedom of the air.
Ko ko ko
Let the one at home, tell the joyless wanderer
Something beckons and it is strong
Gird your loins, plant your feet
This wind looming is brutal
Ko ko di, ko ko da!
Warn the errant ant eating one
For tonight, we must sleep!
Our homestead has been plagued long enough
By needless vigils of hate
Let peace seep like love into our eyes and
Close them tenderly
Ko ko ko ko ko ko ko ko di!
This hunter’s dog will return to camp
If ears reject their calling, then
We’ll speak to the eyes, urging them
To see what our silence says
It is hovering amongst us
This wind. Stick out your tongues and suck
We were once afraid together, now together we are strong
This thing cannot lift us, cannot shift us,
cannot stop us, cannot slam us to the ground
Ko ko ko ko ko ko ko ko di!
We hear it in the wind, its hovering within us
Our feet must stay planted
Our steps firm and sure
Our eyes urging our ears to remember
Sleep this time tonight will be sweet, guilt free
We hear it, listen, understand and tell it
It is here, it is now and it is ours
Ko ko da!

Mantra
Its gathering in the storm, and
I gather my weeds, stand facing it.
The force blows through my dreads and
each one lifts in fear and lies back to cower
in this billowing. I stand weak kneed, small,
terrified to my core but
still standing. For lying, is no option for
the gladiator about to face certain death.
My only weapon is laughter, I throw back my head and
Peal. Even when the wind knocks my mirth back into my head,
I force it out again, make it louder , harder.
For I have no more tears in here.
I am dehydrated; all I have left is this empty echo of a laugh
I repeat to the face of this storm just to say
‘I am still here’ though I quiver at the new onslaught
gathering for me.
I laugh and laugh till my teeth almost separate from my soul but
I keep on for I am afraid that if I stop, I will cry.
The billowing arms of this storm will beat me into submission
I have no strength; my weapon is feeble, futile in the face of this. However
I wave it with every conviction I can lie with.
The storm is upon me, my eyes are shut
I may go down but I will be the warrior
Who dies, teeth bared.