A Shelter of Love
I see you as a heart of our home in the hut
we built with our sun-bitten hands,
another kind of shelter, our love
as old as the avenue of inxopo.
I see you as a silvered glass
that mirrors the fruits of love,
I’ve ne’er tasted before. Bit cold today,
But beside you, your smile radiates warmth
like a crackling fireplace.
I see you as the thatched grass
that roofs our hut like Basotho hat
that keeps me out of the Maseru sun.
You provide a welcome shade. And how
relieved I feel in the thresholds of your hut.
Zulu, Inxopo, leadwood
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Footsteps in the New House
As she steps onto the stoep, at the first,
charms by the alfresco dining room,
surrounded by Orange River lilies
in this lovely nest her smile burst.
This laid-back homestead awakens
with the click-clack of her stilettos.
As she strides surely, the fine-china floors
tremble under her sole like an earthquake.
My tinted specs see her in my bumpy shoes,
contented in her colourful muumuu,
polishing my claret brogues, tightening its strings,
unlike my bronzed hands and everyone else’ fingers.
As she sashays into our new double-story house
her footfalls heavy as she climbs
the snow-white tiled stairs. The ecru walls
throwback the echoes of her presence as she reaches
upstairs, she glances around every part of the building.
the rooms are big, bright and beautiful as if
there’s a skirt that lives here.
As her organs of sight sparked with wonder,
arrested by the striking charm of paintings
of the Nguni cows in the walls, finally
stopping in this warm beige room,
she felt like a door opening into a new place,
she ne’er knew existed on planet earth.
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Home
Home is the rondavel I dream of,
without rough backstreets and harsh corners,
where troublemakers prowl every passage.
From one world to another, I traded hell
for a new shore, but home is the rondavel
I dream of, yet, I live under the bridges,
in a beautiful country, its small, busy town treats
me like a seed of dandelion blown by the wind,
yelling at me, telling me to go back home.
As if I’m a not a human. Home is the rondavel
I dream of, let them hit out and call me tramp,
or whatever. My beginnings begin on the cracked
pavement, in the street where I refused to die hopeless.
Home is the rondavel I dream of, its wall painted
with ochre, its yard adorned with hairbells,
ready to welcome visitors, family and friends.
Home is the rondavel I dream of,
in the coldness of this bone-chilling town,
cardboard my blankets, I weather winter’s wrath,
my dreams don snowdrop like an amber sunrise.
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Poetry (c) Lucas Zulu
Image: Samuel Tsegaye Unsplash remixed