Consonant

I found an old footprint
in the full moonlight as I was
rock-hopping my way
to the Guardian’s Face,
gazing out over blue forevers
turned to silver beneath the
rhythmic syzygy
of Jupiter, Antares and The Crux
playing a game of triangles,
though I couldn’t lead you
back until all the stars
align just like they were
so that it seemed as if
we looked together,
the rock and me.

All I can say is that
the morning before
we sat in a small circle
in the littorina zone
as great waves from the deep
smashed vertical white-
turned-to-rainbow walls,
and remembered a loved one
gently,
and said a simple prayer
for peace.

So walk carefully
if you’re headed for
the South side
of Mlambomkulu River,
where once the old ones,
last ones, first ones,
wandered, wondered
and came to a decision
to dance through echoes in time,
transfixed by the beauty
of that sacred fall
and the feeling of this sea.

Where once, having seen forever,
we were content to come back
and learn again the intricacies
of ungulate, digitigrade and graviportal
motion, feel again the warm camp fire
and watch over it all night
between dreams of elephantom
forest streets and one, stark
ring of power, thrown away
after threading death’s empty eye
on a forgotten hill in the Transkei…

Not the final, climactic act,
but the first step in a new story
about how best to heal ourselves
so that we might, one day,
remember when to make real art,
with the stars themselves
our shared canvas.

TRACES

Dragonfly lullaby

Hidden giants