Kelwyn Sole Poems

Throughout your gaunt life one nightmare recurs, over and over.

You are at your parent's home: palatial, double-storeyed, like none your parents ever could have owned. It doesn't matter: they have vanished and left you there, after sprinkling promises of return. Or maybe it's your house, and your own partner who has left. Or friends. A consensus of absence.

Shortly after their going, you realise you are not alone. The house is large; and night has thrown a blanket down that muffles all the sounds you know. Even cars whispering along an adjacent thoroughfare accentuate a lack of noise surrounding you.

And you own too many windows, rooms, electric lights that must declare your silhouette to eyes without: eyes with a need to cause - to watch - your hurt or dying for reasons you can only guess. You realise you have not checked whether every door is locked, every window clenched quite tight enough; each entrance remembered. The eyes are patient: they will wait until your vigilance unravels into the deep faith of your sleeping.

This dream mars childhood. It pinches its fingers into your life, at least twice a year; and will until your death.

In the mirror of memory comes recognition. A small child, left on your own in the house of your birth by your family as they popped next door, you played on, unmindful of the sounds of crickets and distant human laughter rustling familiarly through the hot, windless highveld night. Suddenly, without cause, the curtains of every window blew inwards, violently, and all together. You sat dead still; then raised your glance slowly, warily, to what might be outside. And recognised a gathering ambush: flickering shadows, and the grasping outline of trees and bushes; until for the first time in your life you intuited what malice was. Along with a wisdom you never have been able to put into effect.

The only place safe would be outside in that dark, yourself.
...

To play in the rain is to be jostled and bruised by the bony shoulders of the dead, impatient to touch a ball, or a child.

To play in the rain is to follow your own footsteps as they explode into spatterings of mud, and still not care where you're going.

To play in the rain is to dodge between the gropings of your mother's voice, and know you belong to nobody.

To play in the rain is the beginning of your story, without a care to wonder where it will all end.

To play in the rain is to rub your body up against each season in turn. Until, one day, you discover winter.
...

I am Petrina girdled by these plains chosen for my atonement. Today, like yesterday, I watch dust-devils far off between the kopjes hesitate, then find a sudden fury. They come towards us faltering, already losing purpose. Some last grains simper on the shutters.

My skede's herfsdroog. I want to live outside my skirts, outside my thoughts; but grandma perches in her ancient chair in the middle of the passage rocking, rocking like a spider.

As I pass, her grip is precise as pincers.

The sheep are dying one by one of bloedpens. I remember being tricked into rejoicing by the sight of the yellow flowers they ate. What is the point to this, no matter what grandma says. Outside my window the windmill rattles a decrepit staccato and no black clouds build.

I think of that stillborn moment after the thunder sounds. I remember once, caught in between all these years of heat and bluster. I think about it often. I think hard to reach little.

I think I still have rain somewhere in my heart.
...

Who is weeping bereft inside our yard?

O mother! Why can't you hear from me the endless rustling in my heart?

Yes I went with him to the river. Mother, I went along

but I never meant to cross the river.

You told me he had cattle. You told me his mother was your friend. Yet I found his smile a tricking, lazy thing that crawled across his lips.

His face is not a sun to rise each day above my sleeping. His hands were two chickens pecking at the hard seed on my breasts. I told him to leave my mouth alone.

He said he had a condom. He said

O mother: I never meant to cross the river.

I said I want to go back home. I tried. My feet disobeyed me on wet pebbles. Mother, I tried to run.

Mother, help me. I am sore between my legs; I am sore all the way deep to my heart.

I try to tell you this and try to tell my aunts. Why will nobody hear me? Why do your gazes turn away?

My aunts shout: it's all your fault: none of this can be our business.

Mother, I beg of you.

I told him no: I never meant to cross the river.
...

- Thanks, Isabel, for the insert on "Dung Beetles in the New South Africa: Is There No Way Forward?" But now back to this morning's programme on how to improve your garden, brought to you live here in Randburg. I figured we'd take a bit of a different angle this week, so I've got with me Mkhomazi Dindi, known to his friends as Dick - here he is - and he's a chap who really knows his stuff! - he's working on a Ph.D. on African Knowledges and Biome Diversity at Wits, so I'm going to ask him to share his experiences with us because we're looking at herbs and plants usually associated with African traditional medicine, some of them probably unknown to you out there. I'd then like Dick to name the plants I show you in his language. Mkhom, um, Dick, so which do you speak? Southern Sotho or Xhosa might be best.

- I don't speak either, to be honest. I grew up where they knew a lot of things. My mother was Tsonga and my father was Zulu, but he had lived in Polokwane as a boy, so I speak a few things all mixed up together . . .

- Polokwane?

- You used to call it Pietersburg.

- Oh, really? Well, Dick, we've begun to fathom that we probably haven't given nearly enough attention to the wealth of tribal lore on plants. One of the most exciting things in the New South Africa is that it's becoming available to us, don't you think?

- Yes, sure. I first came across these things when my parents sent me away from Soweto to my uncle in KwaZulu, who was a herbalist. He went out gathering plants all the time, which then seemed strange to me. I asked him why did he do that, and he explained about the situation. I remember . . .

- yes, I see, okay. But let's get to the point. Here's an example of Helichrysum odoratissimum. Your people know it as Imphepho, isn't that correct?

- You're right. xiTsonga-speakers on the other hand call it . . .

- you listeners out there probably know it as ‘Everlasting', or by its Afrikaans name, ‘Kooigoed'. It's a member of the Asteraceae family; and is sometimes confused with this other plant I have here, Achryocline steoptera. It's . . .

- yes, that one, it's also Imphepho: we burn it in potsherds when we have to . . .

- very aromatic, and used mainly for bedding because it's a strong repellent . . .

- but wait: in my opinion, I can say this is not correct. Maybe, a little, but we also use the leaves and twigs for coughs and for putting on wounds and women who perfume themselves. My uncle said . . .

- no, Dick, not actually. Your uncle was thinking of Helichrysum nudifolium. Mind you, to be fair, I do know that once in a while it's used in ritual incenses to invoke the good will of the ancestors - or what you people call the izindlozi -

- amadlozi . . .

- amadlozi, sorry. As I was saying, used for ritual cleansings . . .

- and for trances . . .

- and for trances, of course; an informant in Maputaland once told me that. Apologies to all of you out there, who'll maybe understand our dilemma when you grasp that there are over two hundred species of Helichrysum in our country. The silvery leaves and little yellow flower-heads don't look like much, but they are attractive in a bowl and gosh they smell exquisite.

- My uncle would cure fevers and headaches with it . . .

- really, Dick? Yes, well, if you say so, of course . . .

- We also use the roots. Anyway, for myself I came to realise . . .

- these species grow all over, and usage depends more on local availability than on any preference for a particular species . . .

- but there are other things . . .

- goodness, have we run out of airtime so soon? So, friends, here it is: use it as a decorative plant but be careful because it spreads quite rapidly. Well-drained soil, please, mixed with a scoop of ordinary sand. Plant it in full sun or partial shade but never, never, never over-water, unless you want to fuss with old man fungus! . . . that's our hour of chat and inserts flown by again. Watch out for next week's slot when I'll be discussing "How to Landscape Small Townhouse Gardens in the Tuscan Style". For now, all Isabel and I - and, of course, our special guest - can do is wish you - as always - a relaxing weekend as you potter about in God's fresh air. Only remember: think indigenous!
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