Poetry
I started writing short poems, in free verse, in 2020. Inspiration comes from anything and everything. They encompass celebrations of friends, festivals, things I do, things I experience or experienced in the past, nature, city life, phases of life, and even the weather! They cover joy and sadness, love and pain, contentment and amazement. In this section you will find seven of them, four composed in or about the African Bush, and three about different events in my life.
Umlani is a bushcamp in the Timbavati block, adjacent to the Kruger National Park, in the north-east of South Africa. Its name means “Place of Rest”, but for me it has been and is much more than that. It's a beautiful, magical place, a place of healing that helped me recover from bereavement, a place of love, a place of inspiration. These are just four of the poems that I have composed there.
Written before 13 January 2022
Along the sandy road I walk, the bordering bush dense and green. Birdsong fills the air; everything else is still. Within the camp perimeter am I, Although you'd never guess it: the fence is for elephants only, all other animals may freely pass. With my blade upon my hip, I scan the greenery left and right from prudence, not fear. For I love this place. the place of rest, Umlani, for me and for always, the place of peace.
Composed in January 2022
The riverbed sand is beige: residual dampness from recent rain. In riverbed pits -- overnight excavations by elephants -- water glitters, reflecting a sky of blue dappled white. Birds sing, but do not fly. The air is still. Bushes and trees are motionless. No animal moves, nor makes a sound, for the zenith Sun beats down, and noon time is siesta time in the bush.
Composed in January 2022
Unmistakable is the trumpet of an elephant, even to a city girl such as I. He passes the camp, ambling along the dry riverbed -- his highway -- confident and secure. Micaela is delighted. Two weeks gone, the Ellies, as she calls them, with the permitted familiarity of proven affection, had moved south to frolic in the post-rains water pools there. “Their absence,” she tells me, “is very noticeable”. But now, and here, the marula fruits are ripening and this favourite food is drawing her beloved Ellies back to Umlani.
2 November 2025
Early bush morning sun already hot as we four line ahead follow animal tracks through the wild bush. Megan our trail guide loaded rifle cradled reassuringly in her arm points out many things and clearly explains. Dew-covered wild grasses cool our hardworking legs. In the rear I periodically check our six. We're learning a lot: bush survival animals birds insects. Everyone thinks of Big Game but Tiny Game is often more fascinating: Baboon Spiders Dung Beatles Millipedes all encountered and explained. We hear the Rainbird sing. And catch up with the Elephants but not too close for they have young. Our movements aren't aimless. Megan is tracking a bull Rhino marking his territory. He's moving fast. Too fast in fact for us. It's getting too hot. Our water is running low. And so we return to Umlani very happy.
And further afield: verses written wherever wind, grief, or a mountain trail happened to carry me, up a hiking path at dusk, aboard a small boat given over to the sea, and into a room where old age keeps its long, quiet watch.
21 February 2023
The strong wind exhilarates. The sea below glitters in the setting Sun. Around us brilliant green is the mountainside. My guide, my dear friend, faces the still brilliant light closes her eyes straightens herself and stretches out her arms as if absorbing its rays to recharge her own natural radiance which blesses all who know her. I stand entranced joyful in this place this time and my companion. I am learning so much from her. She relaxes smiles and leads us on. Between us words are unnecessary for I would follow her anywhere.
22 September 2023
Ssssssh! seethes the sea as our bow slices the Atlantic rollers. Spray flies outward and upward as our small schooner clears the breakwater and confronts the ocean. How I have missed this! Sea and sky, wind and wave combine to exhilarate me! A joy, long forgotten, re-awakes and reinvigorates me. Excited, I forget to be sick. Wind, water, earth and fire! Fire burns in me and in my sisters. Already, I have connected with earth. Now, water calls to me, irresistibly. Surrounded by belovéd mountains, and by the even more loved sea, my life can finally begin.
(Note: aboard the Schooner Esperance, 7 September 2023, with my true family, to scatter my greatly beloved Zélia's ashes at sea, off Cape Town.)
31 January 2026
“Getting old” my Dad would say “is for the birds”. His voice was still strong then. No longer is this so. Alive but barely shrivelled and shrunken he seems like a corpse a ghost trapped in corporeality, hanging on for Mum's sake. Seventy years have they been married and it is difficult for him to say goodbye and impossible for her. She is still spritely in body at 95 but her mind alas is not. Seeing them to be frank is a strain. They are shadows of what they once were. Nightfall can be cold and cruel.