this hide, with this bench and window ledge where you kneel, to rest your elbows and cup your hands to the twilight, serves as a communion rail in the cathedral of lagoon and sea. the setting sun is choir master to the fluttering of a thousand wings. a flamingo in priest's robes blesses the wine-water and the bread mulch in the reeds. I ingest in silence the … [Read more...]
For the love of gravity (for Johann)
this soil scientist walks with us, early morning, mud cows grazing, in silence over stones of words quoting poems by heart. offers us new eyes to behold the land as a slow moving sea where mountains rise on an in and flatten on an out breath. scoops up a handful of soil shares there is more living matter in his palm than people on the planet and a myriad of decay … [Read more...]
Nature, melody and poetry
I am walking with John Roff up the slopes of a krans on the Hilton College Estate, some 600 hectares of wild land that lies between the school and the Umgeni River where giraffes, zebra, buck and blue wildebeest roam. John is the environmental education officer of the school. I have come to the College as writer in residence and John takes me into the wilderness so I can … [Read more...]