Walking by a slow gutter,
a smooth-skinned stone,
oval in its oliveness,
called up to me,
and listening as I was,
down, to pick it up, I stooped.
Rubbed in my hands,
warm with my heart,
I grew accustomed to its close,
hard companionship,
like a birthstone.
Beneath my pillowed head
it rested, my lucky stone,
all the dark night.
Shocked at first light,
for my olive oval had turned –
it was a blood-stone
deep ruby and birthed
by a thunderstorm.
Knowing that within this stone
grew an evil, vengeful impundulu,
a blood-bird, a lightning bird.
I had but one thing to do.
Burying the unlucky blood-stone
in the singeing orange coals of a virgin fire,
I turned away quickly,
not waiting to hear
the screams of the dying lightning bird,
unhatched in its bloodstone.
Ask me someday,
one day when the sun is shining,
a day without chance of storm,
no lightning to betray,
and I will show you its heart,
scraped from the dead embers,
and perhaps tell you
what the thunder said.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem