2012 Evolution – Day 27
Soul Canoe
Superbly carved, polished and primed to snugly fit no other body but mine
Once branch or sturdy trunk, your loving sculpted torso turned hull shines
Amber-gold in the distance, beckoning me to the chilly waters’ edge
I dreamed this invitation long, long ago knowing this river would deliver me
Seasons past uniquely reflected in each tree, now sheltering me from visibility
This voyage is solitary – that is the nature of it I understood even as a child
Wordlessly delighting in water, earth, wind, sky’s company, tossing my voice
Across strips of time, hearing it swallowed or hilariously returning to me triplefold
A little girl growing up yet deeper into her skin, continually stretching her concepts of self
Of being, I am wired for such journeying, senses curious, hungry, attuned instinctively
Joy-filled pursuit of as yet un-manifest possibilities, gratefully rooted in faith in the unseen
Stubbornly optimistic about the purpose and potential of humanity, I still defy disillusionment
Perpetuating buoyancy, this so-called naivety amidst acute awareness of all our destruction,
Our suffering, answering your call to carry me silently slicing through murky depths
Life’s many shadows, necessary deaths precipitating eternal streams of first breaths
I am here, abandoning all fear resurfacing from buried memory, wounded silenced ancestry
Carry me, I am here, willing, wishing, already afloat internally, teasing my old friend gravity
More interested in flowing than finding assurance of where we are going or when we will arrive
2012 Evolution – Day 26
As underwater angels floating in utero
Gradually sense gravity urging their descent
My inner tide knows the moon now nearly full
Is pulling another life cycle towards its close
No longer a wild idea lightly tossed about in conversation
This original seed of intention had ripened, subtly solidified
Soon the ties that bound and grounded me for so long
To this specific soil, this shore, won’t hold me so tightly anymore
Ahead the pressure will build gradually expelling me
From this womb, spiralling me, a willing dandelion
Along unpredictable currents up, up and outward
My sky will cloud and swirl then appear to expand
I will set my course as much as I can, knowing
Nothing can be concrete when you leap in faith
So I will listen amidst all the expected upheaval
Wait for this universal compass to slow then settle
Arriving is inevitable, separation anxiety – necessary rain
Looking back at my trail of cocoons burst open, one by one
More than four decades long, clearly each ensured I grew stronger
No wonder I feel magically ruddered, unready yet inexplicably calm
2012 Evolution – Day 25
Your dark brown feet half buried
in satin soft sun bleached sand
My fascination with the detail of you
all the paths you have walked
That lead you to my wanting shore
a dream, a fire burst I didn’t even know
I was waiting and so hungry for
The tenderness of your travelling fingers
dancing across my exhilarated skin, pausing
As if listening then suddenly driven
to composing a new wordless yet
Inexplicably articulate melody, diving
right into the core of me, my well of memory
Unaware that each note paved your way in
Sky as unflinching witness
Sun as shadow puppeteer
Wind, waker and eraser
Water, ancient teacher
Swelling with tears sculpting
Rock, shoreline and shell
So what is timeless remains
While all else is sifted, shifted
Turned to dissipating grains
Inspired by guitar genius William Ackerman’s ‘Last day at the Beach’
2012 Evolution – Day 24
Feeling the thickening of blood
The quickening before rebirth
Understanding once again
Something more about the nature
Of this illusion we call time
Voyaging at the speed of thought
Caught in the undertow of raw emotion
Lucid mind cautioning me to return
To the surface, the buoyancy of living
Give in to physical, domestic distraction
Earthing, homing, rezoning so my spirit
Reconnects with what is here, now
Tangible, palatable, audible to all
Outside my inner torrential waterfalls
2012 Evolution – Day 23
And on the seventh day, yesterday
She threw herself in front of a train
Her 3 year-old daughter, 4 week-old son
Crossing into oblivion with her
Young unnamed mother from Eerste Rivier
Stopping the six–to-six commuters dead in their tracks
Disrupting their usual sleepwalking Tuesday morning to howl
Without a sound, that she could find no other way out or through
The newscaster delivers this sound bite
Via my car radio this Summery afternoon
Like a poisoned arrow direct to the chest
Until I bear witness in words
I will find no rest, suddenly chilled
A brief involuntary gasping for air
As I hear the final blow, no-one…no-one
Has reported her missing or come to claim
Three once pulsing bodies, now silent and maimed
Perhaps only now she free to stop running
From the wolves consuming her from the inside
Invisible terrors of sorrow, guilt, shame, fear or despair
The paralysing loss of all reasons, heart anchors
To keep her hopeful or here
8th February 2010
Evolution 2012 – Day 22
Twin adhaans interlace across a crisp misty Cape Town dawn
Dreams rapidly returning as I wake, shaken to my core
Pieces of shattering imagery fall into rational place
Making sense of what I saw, will take more time, stillness
A mother stabbed in the back and left for dead by her son
A crying baby abandoned, sitting fingers-in-mouth bewildered
Amidst apartheid-style herding of a rowdy crowd of women
None of them stopping to lift this child from the dirt, see if it was hurt
A few cackling onlookers sing a song to the policemen wielding batons
‘Look into the eyes of that little one, you cannot deny it is your son!’
Such night travelling and mystery weaving is familiar tapestry in my life
Sometimes revelation, long0awaited guidance or prayed-for relief
Other times magical prophecy, eruptions evicting me from stagnation
The comfort of contentment, procrastination of bold steps toward my destiny
So I ultimately see this upheaval as a tide of gifts I simply struggle to receive
2012 Evolution – Day 21
walk with me
lets synchronise our steps
our breath
feel the invisible tentacles
of our bodies reach
across the divide
silently entwine
even as we appear
to move side by side
walk with me
lets release the urge
to pack this togetherness
into words
all of me is here
high on these moments
this presence
the music vibrating
in this, our silence
2012 Evolution – Day 20
windswept kisses
warm chest headrest
water skin glistening
moonlit magnificence
desire quivering
night blanket cocooning
bare soles touching
dream and memory
surfacing, merging, melting
daylight parting
palms farewelling
shining eyes skirting
finally backs turning
heart shutters closing
for now
2012 Evolution – Day 19
At the periphery of skin and unbridled imagining
Strings constantly pulling me from presence
Toward hidden desire, further knowing
No exclusive settling in the here, the now
Keeps me from this yearning for that, there, more
Un-navigated shores call, singing my secret name
Unshackling the parts of me that have been tamed
Muted by duty, domesticity, appropriate conditioning
Incessantly distracted by self-generated internal traffic
One sudden morning I may kick through the window pane
Explode the glass sheet overhead, not by physical breaking
But the simple act of truly awakening, as I have done before
The shattering will be music, perhaps only to my ears
Not even the rain of my unspoken fears will hinder me
Many will say I have gone blind, as they have done before
And I will smile, understanding that they have lost sight
Of an open, beckoning door which I cannot ignore or refuse anymore
Quietly certain of my return, even if in a seemingly alien form, a different woman
2012 Evolution – Day 18
mothertongue silenced, hidden or far flung
its musicality, crucial histories, lost poetry
dusty bibles recording deaths births
umbilical connection to specific piece of earth
travelling, morphing, uncovering fragments of self
as the distance from and definition of home grows
propelling soul into new soil, spirit to new planes
learning in leaving, the severing and love in the return
