Superbly carved, polished and primed to snugly fit no other body but mine

Once branch or sturdy trunk, your loving sculpted torso turned hull shines

Amber-gold in the distance, beckoning me to the chilly waters’ edge

I dreamed this invitation long, long ago knowing this river would deliver me

Seasons past uniquely reflected in each tree, now sheltering me from visibility

This voyage is solitary – that is the nature of it I understood even as a child

Wordlessly delighting in water, earth, wind, sky’s company, tossing my voice

Across strips of time, hearing it swallowed or hilariously returning to me triplefold

A little girl growing up yet deeper into her skin, continually stretching her concepts of self

Of being, I am wired for such journeying, senses curious, hungry, attuned instinctively

Joy-filled pursuit of as yet un-manifest possibilities, gratefully rooted in faith in the unseen

Stubbornly optimistic about the purpose and potential of humanity, I still defy disillusionment

Perpetuating buoyancy, this so-called naivety amidst acute awareness of all our destruction,

Our suffering, answering your call to carry me silently slicing through murky depths

Life’s many shadows, necessary deaths precipitating eternal streams of first breaths

I am here, abandoning all fear resurfacing from buried memory, wounded silenced ancestry

Carry me, I am here, willing, wishing, already afloat internally, teasing my old friend gravity

More interested in flowing than finding assurance of where we are going or when we will arrive

No longer a wild idea lightly tossed about in conversation
This original seed of intention had ripened, subtly solidified
Soon the ties that bound and grounded me for so long
To this specific soil, this shore, won’t hold me so tightly anymore

Ahead the pressure will build gradually expelling me
From this womb, spiralling me, a willing dandelion
Along unpredictable currents up, up and outward
My sky will cloud and swirl then appear to expand

I will set my course as much as I can, knowing
Nothing can be concrete when you leap in faith
So I will listen amidst all the expected upheaval
Wait for this universal compass to slow then settle

Arriving is inevitable, separation anxiety – necessary rain
Looking back at my trail of cocoons burst open, one by one
More than four decades long, clearly each ensured I grew stronger
No wonder I feel magically ruddered, unready yet inexplicably calm

in satin soft sun bleached sand

My fascination with the detail of you

all the paths you have walked

That lead you to my wanting shore

a dream, a fire burst I didn’t even know

I was waiting and so hungry for

The tenderness of your travelling fingers

dancing across my exhilarated skin, pausing

As if listening then suddenly driven

to composing a new wordless yet

Inexplicably articulate melody, diving

right into the core of me, my well of memory

Unaware that each note paved your way in

Sky as unflinching witness

Sun as shadow puppeteer

Wind, waker and eraser

Water, ancient teacher

Swelling with tears sculpting

Rock, shoreline and shell

So what is timeless remains

While all else is sifted, shifted

Turned to dissipating grains

Inspired by guitar genius William Ackerman’s ‘Last day at the Beach’

The quickening before rebirth

Understanding once again

Something more about the nature

Of this illusion we call time

Voyaging at the speed of thought

Caught in the undertow of raw emotion

Lucid mind cautioning me to return

To the surface, the buoyancy of living

Give in to physical, domestic distraction

Earthing, homing, rezoning so my spirit

Reconnects with what is here, now

Tangible, palatable, audible to all

Outside my inner torrential waterfalls

She threw herself in front of a train

Her 3 year-old daughter, 4 week-old son

Crossing into oblivion with her

Young unnamed mother from Eerste Rivier

Stopping the six–to-six commuters dead in their tracks

Disrupting their usual sleepwalking Tuesday morning to howl

Without a sound, that she could find no other way out or through

The newscaster delivers this sound bite

Via my car radio this Summery afternoon

Like a poisoned arrow direct to the chest

Until I bear witness in words

I will find no rest, suddenly chilled

A brief involuntary gasping for air

As I hear the final blow, no-one…no-one

Has reported her missing or come to claim

Three once pulsing bodies, now silent and maimed

Perhaps only now she free to stop running

From the wolves consuming her from the inside

Invisible terrors of sorrow, guilt, shame, fear or despair

The paralysing loss of all reasons, heart anchors

To keep her hopeful or here

8th February 2010

lets synchronise our steps

our breath

feel the invisible tentacles

of our bodies reach

across the divide

silently entwine

even as we appear

to move side by side

walk with me

lets release the urge

to pack this togetherness

into words

all of me is here

high on these moments

this presence

the music vibrating

in this, our silence

warm chest headrest

water skin glistening

moonlit magnificence

desire quivering

night blanket cocooning

bare soles touching

dream and memory

surfacing, merging, melting

daylight parting

palms farewelling

shining eyes skirting

finally backs turning

heart shutters closing

for now

Strings constantly pulling me from presence

Toward hidden desire, further knowing

No exclusive settling in the here, the now

Keeps me from this yearning for that, there, more

Un-navigated shores call, singing my secret name

Unshackling the parts of me that have been tamed

Muted by duty, domesticity, appropriate conditioning

Incessantly distracted by self-generated internal traffic

One sudden morning I may kick through the window pane

Explode the glass sheet overhead, not by physical breaking

But the simple act of truly awakening, as I have done before

The shattering will be music, perhaps only to my ears

Not even the rain of my unspoken fears will hinder me

Many will say I have gone blind, as they have done before

And I will smile, understanding that they have lost sight

Of an open, beckoning door which I cannot ignore or refuse anymore

Quietly certain of my return, even if in a seemingly alien form, a different woman

its musicality, crucial histories, lost poetry

dusty bibles recording deaths births

umbilical connection to specific piece of earth

travelling, morphing, uncovering fragments of self

as the distance from and definition of home grows

propelling soul into new soil, spirit to new planes

learning in leaving, the severing and love in the return