Thoughts
Of mute drums and snarling sheep Of thunder in tummies and cowing ears Of coiled thoughts and happy fists Of tumbling eagles and sleepless tunes And above all, thoughts of homeless thoughts! The seeming homelessness of my thoughts: They make me wonder
Violence
How it is that, in the quantum tango we call life, Mercy can tackle and mock Cruelty’s efforts to entangle, breaking its icy, clawing hands on the rocky shores of love?! And yet, in this random universe, seen from whichever angle, violence is the parent, and life and love its scattered offspring. The quantum entanglement […]
Mum
What do I remember? Slippery certainty, and the solidity of a suckle on a teat; a slap to snap my mouth out of the attempt to toy with it, all efforts to draw out milk from mum’s teats yielding nil. My mum, knowing force-feeding me through a cupped hand could kill, and deciding to see […]
Grandmother
What makes me wonder? My grandmother, Africa a fleeting fragment of faith in a memory in full flight; a summoning of sad sounds and shocked silences: a sobbed question: ‘Oh Africa, why have you left me, why?’ Death, a silent and loud ending, birthing me into my senses The birthing of sense into me: That […]
Violence II
What makes me wonder? How, in peering deep into Deep Time, we tiptoe on the wings of escaped light, into the heart of ancient violence. How, through the past prism of present heat, we peer into promised pain; for it is said that we are forged in a crucible of the highest temperature. Thus begotten, […]
Prison
What makes me wonder? How we are all doomed by the freedom of imprisonment: Tightly tethered on a lonely blue orb by gravity’s freedom; How, without this freedom, we would flail fearfully wandering about, fighting to flee from a fleeing universe. How mercifully funny to forget to fear the fate of the blue orb! The […]
Mountains
What makes me wonder? The Mountains – all dressed up with nowhere to go. Their smooth velvet shoulders and curved breasts… Their mild tremble in honour of the passing breeze… Their whimsical smiles in the shimmering noon sun… Oh, how the fluency of their silent strength annoys time! Mountains, all dressed but nowhere to go: […]
Tele
What makes me wonder? ‘Tele, do you sometimes fear the future? ‘Dad, I don’t fear the future; the future should fear me! But, yes, I think about obstacles, failures ahead but…’ ‘But Tele, obstacles and failure are good for you; They strengthen you – if they are not disastrous!’ Silence… Tele’s spoken silence: That makes me […]
Interlude
What makes me wonder? How a brief interlude of silence abides amidst the maddening chaos; how the memory of the founding fires lies embedded as much in our genes as in the heaving hotness of the heavens. The interlude inside of silence: That is what makes me wonder
Violence III
What makes me wonder? How it is that, in the quantum tango we call life, Mercy can tackle and mock Cruelty’s efforts to entangle, breaking its icy, clawing hands on the rocky shores of love?! And yet, in this random universe, seen from whichever angle, violence is the parent, and life and love its scattered […]
