New Criticals


IV. The Returning Poem

The rain bewitched!

Taken
by shades of breaths and whispers and winds

Mayibuye [8]

Sepedi
Sesotho
Setswana
siSwati
Tshivenda
Xitsonga
Afrikaans
English
isiNdebele
isiXhosa
isiZulu [9]

as I am
IIKabbo [10]
asleep into the dreams of a child

as I see
le hlabile letšatši ka June 16 [11]
as I hear
the heaven’s thing
walks
on the tabla

a song sung by Moon
a song that was once a childish shoe

Le hlabile letšatši ka June 16
I do not cry with tears
I cry with sounds
Sepedi
Sesotho
Setswana
siSwati
Tshivenda
Xitsonga
Afrikaans
English
isiNdebele
isiXhosa
isiZulu

turn back for me
stones of prey
are dying as a metaphor

landscapes of holes
healings of herbs
the dawned days

Mayibuye

Africa

And the taken poem

is returning

a vessel into wrinkles

of our hands