A shadow passes
The last time I wrote, I almost exclusively focused on the excitement of being at a new site, and the wonderful feeling of infatuation with the unknown. I’ve now developed a routine, and have settled in, and am still, perhaps surprisingly, infatuated. My love on Manabougou Coura, the people there, the gardens, the brush, however, doesn’t erase the impenetrable darker side of the culture here, that is usually only hinted at, rather than seen directly. It doesn’t erase it, and it doesn’t make it any less important to put these issues to you for discussion and contemplation. It is not, however, at all easy to talk about serious and upsetting occurrences directly, so I offer them in back-of-the-page scribbled verse, unedited, simply impressions. We all have our shadows.
‘One mother!’
padding barefoot to the road
the very trees bend their leaves
to acknowledge her calls
a flutter to turn and point
to the source
of pain
of grief
of despair
A congregation of clouds deliberates
boiling swiftly for justice
timpani to flute of birds surround her soaring, rasping call
‘One mother!’
voice ragged in rage
the first fat spatter scatters dust at her feet
joined in twos and fives
now pounding in scores
ravagaing ground
to bring weight to the earth
‘One mother!’
she thunders, pointing now to the shaft
scribe of the law of these men.
long stripes of fury purple
blossoming unseen
in the fertile ground
of wet fabric
dark skin.
each drop beats
new rhythm, tearing
through soil that cannot
absorb fast enough.
‘One mother!’
The Last
Her husband stands straight in the gale.
Sarah George
Bev Henderson-George
