1987, Verulam, South Africa
They sat on the balcony. In slow, long drags
emitting tiny shimmers and snaps, conversed.
Above the sound of pedestrians shuffling their heavy parcels
along the rain dampened pavements, aunties and mothers rushing errant kids
snotty nosed, nagging them for sweets on the busy street below
A dimly-lit scene, coloured by India-dyed shades, in our mind’s eye at this hour
For a plastered-shut bannister required none but the tallest, tippytoed audience,
or the heckling nosiest participants to consume it with an eye.
We sat behind it and above, staring off into the dark green hills
Our faces lit by the glow of warm embers and light from inside
that leaked out by the curtain behind the shut sliding door.
Collectively, it all gave but a hint of the expression on the aging Elder
Perhaps it was briefly concern.
It became hidden soon and then repeatedly by exhaled smoke
The scent of it mixed with aromas of dhania and mint
and the sounds of a television reporting another security alert
These were the hopeless days. Years of burning and festering
It continued, merely one more report transpiring from a litany of murders
dripping like melting rubber into the years ahead of report after report
Read into riotess record from a prompter
The Elders' voice, exhaled slowly, "There are Prompters, Tommy."
The Study winked his eye against the rising smoke. A long drag
He was paying closer attention to the Elder’s expression
Yes, it was less concern now
Was all of the madness in some way sensible?
"Prompters?" a request for the Elder to colour it in
To Name a few of them, perhaps
"Foreign, or Domestic?"
The answers were clear, and evident in the darkening hills
But they would not come in stark form for years
The hills and the plains and concrete streets, would be covered
in black night, in red, in pangs and cries and chants
In years of echoes of mayhem from our collective corrugated bellies
And Life, in empty banquets preparing as we sat there
Our struggle for burial. An approaching attraction the likes of which
Would sear the Grass draped over the body,
clear ripped right off the skin of the faces of heroes
The dutiful moon behind a cloud,
Morning rays somewhere far away, which
by the morrow's noon would certainly scorch and sear starved caged spirits
And we’d no longer feign parting smiles
We'd slow our paces, shuffle on even more slowly on damp pavements
dragging heavy burdens toward life's bidding knocks
farther and farther away. Jabs and kicks and shoves mostly by our own
would come and they’d consume us one by one,
Our green hills always too-soon ridding themselves of us
Yes. There were years of sense in the Elder's voice.
The years behind and ahead
Pregnant in His trained, aloof distance.
An attitude that kept us all marching quietly,
bearing every weight long after he'd taken Leave,
and well into all the nights that still lay ahead
through every quiet aloneness, and every prayer
offered up during the many leavings and waitings
The pain of parting and loss would not breed hatred
but Faith, Perseverance and allowed us to draw on It
The kitchen, filled with a Wife's delicate,
Dear, nurturing and feeding hands. Filled by life scents
The mayhem merely decked the ground,
fertile for every Goodness ahead.
11 May 2018, 20 May 2022
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#poetry #SouthAfrica #liberation #struggle #neoliberalism #betrayal
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