Hiraeth
Born free
One day
We will prove all the
Naysayers wrong,
We will stand exhausted, wounded,
Victorious in the sun.
Hand in hand our voices resound,
The sweet song of unity,
In our passion, in our stories found.
It won’t matter where you came from,
Or how you ended here,
Brothers and sisters we marched,
Different, defiant in the face of fear.
Forever etched in our memory,
Part of who we will be,
Yes, we are not lost
We
Are
Born
Free.
Copyright Hiraeth 2015
For the South African Class of 2015
#feesmustfall
#stelliesfeesmustfall
Message from the sea
Once
I loved you once
In the time when One Republic
Sang about angels apologizing
And the beachfront was bare,
Mall-free;
In the time you wrestled with your
Darkness, your demons waltzing
With mine to a song called destiny.
In the time you would trade love
For anything,
Everything,
Even your self.
And I loved you once,
In the time when he no longer could,
Would
And knew he should.
Yes,
I loved you once
(And sometimes when the moon sits
Crescent in the sky
I dream that forever
You were mine)
Copyright Hiraeth 2015
Home
This is the house
Our home, our end.
Here the ponytail tree we bought for our fifth anniversary. The winds of change have left it bent, willowed, dry.
Here the weathered leather couch, a companion from our student days. Etched on its leather hours of cuddling, studying, sunday sex and the moment you said we were done.
Here our kitchen, neatly remodelled with every appliance of your choice, the coffee machine desperate for capsules, desperate for the aroma of caffeine mixed with conversation and Springsteen lamenting life, the smell of home.
Here the bed, far too small to hold our truth. At night it wakes, mocks you with the truth: I am gone, I have left.
Here the home we built and every dream we ever held, every hope I ever put in you.
And now
Home is a black suitcase
Marked fragile,
Handle with care.
Copyright Hiraeth 2015
Pots and Lids
When I was ten I read a book of short stories for teenagers. Entitled “Every pot has a lid,” it spoke against pre-marital sex and how you should wait to find your perfect fit, how there was someone meant just for you. It is a notion that deeply resonated with me, to the extent that I believed I had found my lid at fifteen and held on to it anxiously, even despite it clearly not sealing the edges of the so-called pot. In my twenties it took the shape of believing in soul mates, so much so that I once put everything on the line pursuing what I believed was destiny. This lid, here, at all costs, is a very dangerous belief. What I have learnt through many tears and trials is that no lid fits perfectly, what makes a lid and pot fit well and weather life is the will to mould, to expand, to shrink, to move.
And I think it helps if every now and then you look at your lid and think how damn sexy its curves are.
Copyright Hiraeth 2015
Recorded on Facebook
Recorded on Facebook
Our forever end
On your timeline captured
That which we could not mend.
Along with the last photo
Of romantic us:
Me with a distant look,
A preoccupation that there
Must be more:
More love, more meaning, more
Than this,
You in a Rip Curl shirt, with your
Off centre smile,
Completely content,
Unaware of the approaching trial.
Recorded on Facebook
Our forever end
On your timeline captured
That which we
Chose
Not to mend.
Copyright Hiraeth 2015
Sensitive Souls
Burn
Gardening (with God)
I think God romances me in my garden. And before you think I have entirely lost the plot, let me explain. In the last two years I have grown green fingers. I find myself completely peaceful scrounging in the dirt, planting new life and my favourite: creating new plants from existing ones. I spend time there every day, even on the rainy, duvet days. My soul is peaceful most days and on the days there is frustration, anger, I find enormous release in pruning, sometimes going completely overboard and ending with a lobsided shape (our one hedge is a collapsing triangle – I now greet my neighbour every day). It is my quiet time, my time to reflect, re-focus and release and my time alone with God.
I never knew there was a Frangipani plant in my garden until it flowered for the first time. It is my favourite flower. I took it as a welcoming card from Him, this, here is your home. In the past few weeks I have been questioning life, the ebb and flow and seasons and as I was weeding furiously in between my aloes, I discovered a new seedling with delicate white flowers that look like little bells hiding in the shadow of a leaf. And He said, there is always beauty, there is always a second chance.
He always speaks. Sometimes in the smell of the sea, in the call of seagulls, sometimes in the destruction sowed by snails (those little buggers drive me nuts). He reminds me that even though things change, they break and bleed, there is always love, there is always hope.
hiraethphoenix 