Thabo Seseane

Occasionally,
Unexpectedly, arriving again at a viewer's vantage,
A panorama of views in north-south directions:
Pantomimes repeated in many theatres -
...

From before the first heartbeat,
For nine months of waiting.
At birth and later,
...

ECHOES OF FROTH

Watching bubbles pop,
Is a skill you learn,
...

Captain's heart is still strange:
It beats as always, though his body is cold,
Now long cold.
...

Come dusk their formations form.
Shiny eye-pairs open and multiply;
Ranks gather, march, then jog.
Advancing into kitchens, barns and crevices,
...

Through the interdependence of contrasts
- as in wakefulness and dreaming,
- symmetry and discordance,
- music and noise;
...

(A song of awe and gratitude for the Masai Mara)

The children are playing on the carpet,
The green carpet with white decorations.
...

To healing for past wrongs and evils,
Or to building,
Or for having lost
the will
...

(Following Mandela's steps)

If we could see beyond the horizon,
If our eyes could follow the well-beaten path
...

We were sustained and showed semi- radiance
From being washed by waves of past and future guilt.
Tethers of penance held our breath
Adding days and years
...

Looking angry as yesterday
Loaded with fury,
Rumbling: Stay inside!
And despite releasing
...

Impelled to cross the evanescent veil
By some movement, some transport, or some act,
We're the hues that suffuse, we're what prevails
In each new colour and sound, each new fact:
...

With this wondrous load of fragile promise,
We emerge from tropical enchantment, -
A time of loving giggles, warm bodies-
Struck by awe, yet also insouciant.
...

Distant homes,
Distant wives,
Distant children…
Gold-bearing migrant beavers,
...

They must have brought me to your shore
When I did not know you were not the sea.
When I grew taller and began
To see land beyond your flowing currents
...

The loser found love.

Love is again turbulent.
...