Homo-Naledi at The Cradle of humankind*

Homo-Naledi at The Cradle of humankind*

shared hopes
on
bloodied earth
of
common dreams

winding along myriad streams
whose
source is here
beneath our multi-hued feet

flowing
into a shared humanity
this shawl that should encompass us all
by
binding us together
a species with blood that is red
always red

for
we are all

the children of Africa

branched off
spread wide

but
of this soil
and
of this earth

foreign to none
hewn as one

         _______

*

Maropeng is a Setswana word meaning ‘returning to the place of our origins’

http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2015/09/10/Homo-naledi-a-new-species-of-human-relative-from-the-Cradle-of-Humankind

https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.maropeng.co.za/mobile&ved=0CIIBEBYwE2oVChMImK2lnrTtxwIVA7IUCh0YaAJr&usg=AFQjCNHlzmroYaE8YJITfwla6qByM9RC-Q

walking through the crowd …

walking through the crowd …

alone
not lonely

traversing oceans
skipping mountains

tugged by beckoning smiles

absorbed along
endless miles

seeking strands of hope
loosely strung

untying the noose
where desolation once hung

while
scribbling verses unfathomably obtuse

discarding meter and rhyme

frantically
chasing ever-fleeing time

knowing
my moulting skin
is all that i have to lose

while still
walking through the crowd

alone
not lonely

an outsider

always
seeking peace
within

ever hopeful
of gentler days

when
healing may begin

soothing the soul

casting off leaden  weight

of so much that has in tne past,

past

The African Rains …

The African Rains …

Soaking,
the rains settle,
meandering over jagged faultlines of our memory.

Drenching,
the rains settle,
streaming through veins,

the thud-thudding of the heartbeat of Africa.

Absorbing,
the rains that settle,
within each of us,

herald rebirth.

And,
if you listen,

if you strain to hear,
while shedding the raucous noise of your inner turmoil.

If you listen,

the whispers of the ancestors,

speak to us all,
lending us warmth,
urging us to stand,

even though we may
stumble,

even though we may fall.

a shared mosaic

a shared mosaic.

threads
intertwined
bind

him
her
you

&

i

together.

earthy
shades
colours

hues
fuse

him
her
you

&

i

together.

one mosaic

one world
one race

human …

him
her
you

&

i

together …

South Africa salutes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

South Africa salutes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr!

They gunned you down,
on this April day,
all those years ago,

yet you live, you breathe!

They gunned you down,
just as they did Chris Hani and M.K. Gandhi,

and they failed, as they always will,

for they can never kill,

your dream, your ideals.

Your dream, your ideals,

live, and breathe,

still!

Mido Macia 1986 – 2013

Mido Macia 1986 – 2013

Mido Macia was a 27 year old Mozambican man, working in Daveyton near Johannesburg as a taxi-driver, who was found dead in a police cell, after police savagely dragged Mr. Macia whom they had tied to their police van.

The brutal incident of Mr. Macia being dragged was caught on camera and has shocked South Africa.

The 8 police officers involved are facing charges of murder, and have been suspended from the South African Police Service (SAPS).

This poem is an angry poem that I felt had to be written, because as a society, we need to ask ourselves and each other the hardest questions about xenophobia and intolerance and violence.

Mido Macia 1986 – 2013

Death came to Mido Macia,
a savage, brutal, hellish death came to Mido Macia.

Death came to Mido Macia,
death dressed-up in the colours of authority,
as callous, vile, sadistic policemen murdered Mido Macia.

The video-footage is blood-curdling,
Mido Macia being dragged,
his hands tied behind him,
to a police van.

But death came later to Mido Macia,
death cheered, clapped, and tore into Mido Macia.

Death came to Mido Macia,
in the cells where they murdered Mido Macia.

Death came to Mido Macia,
a fuelled, cheered-on, instigated death came to Mido Macia.

We are all culpable,
every one of us is culpable,

from racist ‘jokes’ emailed and texted,
to self-righteous comments about the ‘foreigners’,

from casual dinner-table conversations,

‘they take our jobs’,
‘they are crooks’
the ‘they marry our women’ kind of lunch-time chats,

racist, xenophobic, hate-filled talk,

to beating a human-being to death in a police cell,

or on the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg ,

and in Daveyton,

where death came to Mido Macia.

Mido Macia 1986 – 2013

My mother (with tears in her eyes)

(for Lata Sethi’s late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)

…a wife left South Africa in the 1960’s to join her husband

who was in exile at the time…

 
in 1970 the husband was sent by the African National Congress to India to be its representative there…

 
the husband and wife spent two years in Bombay…

 
one afternoon the husband fell and broke his leg…

the wife knocked on their neighbour’s door, in an apartment complex in Bombay

the neighbour was an old Punjabi lady…

the wife asked the neighbour for a doctor to see to the injured husband…

a Parsi (Zoroastrian) ‘Bone-Setter’ was promptly summoned…

the husband still recalls his anxiety of seeing ‘Bone-Setter’ written on the Parsi gentleman’s bag…

by the way, the ‘Bone-Setter’ worked his ancient craft and surprisingly for the husband, his broken leg healed quite soon…

but still on that day, while the ‘Bone-Setter’ was seeing to the husband…

the wife and the old Punjabi lady from next door got to talking about this and that and where these new Indian-looking wife and husband were from as their accents were clearly not local…

the wife told the elderly Punjabi lady that the husband worked for the African National Congress of South Africa and had left to serve the ANC from exile…

and that they had left their two children behind in South Africa and that they were now essentially political refugees…

the Punjabi lady broke down and wept uncontrollably…

she told the foreign woman that she too had had to leave her home in Lahore in 1947 and flee to India with only the clothes on her back when the partition of the subcontinent took place and Pakistan was formed and at a time when Hindus from Pakistan fled to India and vice versa…

the Punjabi lady then asked the foreign woman her name… 

‘Zubeida’, but you can call me ‘Zubie’…

the Punjabi woman hugged Zubie some more, and the two women, seperated by age and geography, wept, sharing a shared pain…

the Punjabi woman told Zubie that she was her ‘sister’ from that day on, and that she felt that pain of exile and forced migration and what being a refugee felt like…

Zubie and her husband Mosie became the closest of friends with the Punjabi neighbours who had become refugees themselves, as ‘Muslim’ Pakistan was created…

then came the time for Mosie and Zubie to leave for Delhi where the African National Congress office was based…

the elderly Punjabi lady and Mosie and Zubie said their goodbyes…

a year or two later, the elderly Punjabi lady’s daughter Lata married Ravi Sethi and the couple moved to Delhi…

the elderly Punjabi lady called Zubie and told her that her daughter was coming to Delhi to live and that she had told Lata, her daughter that she had a ‘sister’ in Delhi…

Lata and Ravi Sethi then moved to Delhi…

This was in the mid-1970’s…

Lata and Zubie became the closest of friends and that bond stayed true, and stays true till today, though Zubie is no more, and the elderly Punjabi lady is no more…

the son and the husband still have a bond with Lata and Ravi Sethi…

a bond that was forged between Hindu and Muslim and between two continents across the barriers of creed and shared anguish…

a bond strong and resilient, forged by the pain and trauma of a shared experience…

and that is why, and I shall never stop believing this, that hope shines still, for with all the talk of this and of that, and of that and of this, there will always be a simple woman, somewhere, anywhere, who would take the ‘other’ in as a sister, a fellow human…

and that is why there will always be hope…

hope in the midst of this and of that and of that and of this…

hope…

(for Lata Sethi’s late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony, New Delhi)

For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

Colours,
hues,
shades,
of difference,

mingling on a canvas.

Your dream became,

our shared vision,
our collective hope,

of black, and of white,
and of rainbows,

that merge,

flowing,
to a confluence,

of harmony,

within sight,
without despair,

within beating hearts,
without invisible walls,

as we pledge,
today,
and forever more,

to honour your dream,
and build on your sacrifice,

to shun narrow visions,
of divisive gloom.

Today,
we embrace,

all colours,
every hue,
and the countless shades,

of difference,

as we,

your torch-bearers,

plant the seeds,
of the flowers of peace,
of tolerance,
of justice.

And as we nourish,
those flowers,

we know,
we know,
we know,

that the flowers of peace,
of tolerance,
of equality,
of justice,

will, and must,

inevitability bloom

The Infidel

The infidel writes,

blasphemes,

rejecting cellophane sermons.

 

The infidel whispers,

cursing,

the benevolence of the higher power.

 

The infidel chokes,

gagging,

on the odour that emanates,

from self-righteous mouths.

 

The infidel waits,

patiently,

for the retribution that must arrive.

 

The infidel casts off,

the labels of faith,

of belonging,

of sanctimonious snobbery.

 

The infidel refuses,

To beseech the merciful god,

And to cower,

And to kneel.

 

The infidel stands,

At times alone.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”

 

I Want to Walk with You

I want to walk with you with our heads held high

Never cowering, never with heads bowed

With our feet on this blessed soil, and our dreams reaching for the sky

 

Dreams of simple joys and of peace and of mirth

For all our fellow travelers on this delightful earth

 

Dreams not of wealth or of positions of high standing or of mighty power

Simple dreams of a walk in the aftermath of a Johannesburg evening rain-shower

 

Dreams of bread and water and dignity and shelter and clothes for all

Dreams where all fellow travelers may together walk this earth proud and tall

 

I want to walk with you, my fellow traveler, with our heads held high

Never pandering to power, never silent in the face of its abuse

Always firm in our convictions that we can all make peace if we only try

 

If we try to stop and think and sometimes not to look the other way

If we practice what our different creeds really teach, we will surely see that day

 

When we all, fellow travelers may walk with our heads held high

Never cowering, never with our heads bowed

With our feet on this blessed soil, and our collective dreams reaching for the sky

 

Call me silly, call me naive, call me hopeless, and if you must, call me weak

But is this not the common good that our different creeds and cultures all seek?