Riviersonderend

Irene Barnard

Out of nothing, you pulled up a cosmos. Milk and
kindness your glue, you clasped together stones, water,
vigilance. Your ideas, little marvels, used to seep
into people one drop at a time, slowly. Fostered.

But when I saw you in your Caledon Coffin;
your temple gently swallowing a hydrangea bruise,
a seam of blood where their razors missed -
the soil dried up. The river stopped.

The dominee said The Great Cedar Has Fallen.
In the gallery of Riviersonderend’s NG Kerk,
a storm of dark faces; (like in the olden days!
You’d have had something to say) wailing.

You would plant kisses fifteen times
a second, smiling; tactile with your tree-bark
hands. And, like the rain, when you sang,
the earth slowed, and soaked in it.

Now you lie with a frown; silenced,
their scheming facades huffing over you.
The Overberg shrivelled in pain. And the river, bile trickle,
is choking on your kindness.

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