Incredible Violet
  • Blog
  • Goodbye Songs & Thank-you Notes
    • The End >
      • Shedding
      • Walking
      • Thnking of You
      • My Secret
      • Happy Birthday!
      • So?
      • Goodbye!
    • Other Endings >
      • Forever
      • Losing
      • Thank You
    • Neverendings >
      • Old city-friend
  • I sleep, I dream
    • Dreaming >
      • Night-life
    • My Planet >
      • Being Brave
      • One
    • Nostalgia >
      • When I grow up
      • First Bounce
  • Its Inside-Out & Orange
    • Inside >
      • Day-dreaming...
      • Visitor
      • Ownership
    • Out >
      • Ashes to Ashes
      • Tomorrow
      • Ouch
  • You, Me & the Others
    • You >
      • Tigger
      • You're lying
      • Not talking
      • The Children of other Gods
    • Me >
      • Sleeping in the half-light
      • Body Parts
      • Home
      • Underwater
    • The Others >
      • Hard Places
  • My Heart
    • Broken >
      • Broken-hearted
      • chest pain
      • Eating Tears
      • Shame
      • Dead
      • Heartbroken (Why?)
    • Soft >
      • Softness & Darkness
      • Dear Heart,
      • A love song
      • Voice
      • Found
    • Believing >
      • Faithless
      • October, 11th
      • Kneeling & Crying
      • Beat
      • "Fear" or "Following my heart."
  • Homeland
    • Heaven
    • Once
    • Ownership: A memory
    • fuer Strasbourg
    • Things
  • Colour
    • Grey >
      • Reason
  • About
  • Contact

Ashes to Ashes

An older poem, written during the time of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.  A memory.

  

8/4/2016

1 Comment

 
​Break heart (crack open)!
Leave your stubborn sunlit
excuses and look, for once,
At your black ashes!

​Tear those clothes of fear
and shame and look deep,
too deep for light to come
alone, and break!

Black heart, blacker than any black skin

of blackened grapes
or black township wars
​or black nights
for human rights
& darkening days
​for blacker sons & daughters

​Thula!
​Thula! Thula!
​Thula, mama!
Thula!

Ssshhh!

​Cry white tears quietly.
You lost your moment
to cry out loud
and wail and mourn
for the losses of others.

Now break your heart!  Break!
and know that you are
dust
and that, for you, water must come
​from someone else's eyes.

Wrap your arms around yourself
and cry into your own white bossom!
​Let your sobs be heard by none
other that your own heart and
​break it to pieces!

Hold it in your arms, your broken heart,
(see if you can) and see
how it was dead all the time
there inside you!  A dead child
​wrapped in rags and still held tight

by its panicking mother,
held tight and carried and fed,
​lest anyone (incl. her) should notice
that it was dead
and throw it away.
​
...

​What use is a black-burned heart
in all this sunshine?

​What use have we for our seared consciences
​while we're eating our braai meat?

​Why would we offer any sacrifices for our sins
​on our polite potjie fires?
1 Comment
Liz Herselman
11/19/2018 05:40:58 pm

I wouldn't mind seeing this shared on Facebook instead of all the white fear mongering I unfollow daily.

Last two attends blow me away. Polite potjie fires... Seared consciences. Ingrid Jonker's sentiments, I suspect, if she'd lived to see how poorly we've assimilated.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Charmaine M.

    Archives

    August 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Blog
  • Goodbye Songs & Thank-you Notes
    • The End >
      • Shedding
      • Walking
      • Thnking of You
      • My Secret
      • Happy Birthday!
      • So?
      • Goodbye!
    • Other Endings >
      • Forever
      • Losing
      • Thank You
    • Neverendings >
      • Old city-friend
  • I sleep, I dream
    • Dreaming >
      • Night-life
    • My Planet >
      • Being Brave
      • One
    • Nostalgia >
      • When I grow up
      • First Bounce
  • Its Inside-Out & Orange
    • Inside >
      • Day-dreaming...
      • Visitor
      • Ownership
    • Out >
      • Ashes to Ashes
      • Tomorrow
      • Ouch
  • You, Me & the Others
    • You >
      • Tigger
      • You're lying
      • Not talking
      • The Children of other Gods
    • Me >
      • Sleeping in the half-light
      • Body Parts
      • Home
      • Underwater
    • The Others >
      • Hard Places
  • My Heart
    • Broken >
      • Broken-hearted
      • chest pain
      • Eating Tears
      • Shame
      • Dead
      • Heartbroken (Why?)
    • Soft >
      • Softness & Darkness
      • Dear Heart,
      • A love song
      • Voice
      • Found
    • Believing >
      • Faithless
      • October, 11th
      • Kneeling & Crying
      • Beat
      • "Fear" or "Following my heart."
  • Homeland
    • Heaven
    • Once
    • Ownership: A memory
    • fuer Strasbourg
    • Things
  • Colour
    • Grey >
      • Reason
  • About
  • Contact