This poem came to me as a delayed response to our President’s reference to a typical “beneficiary” of thirty years of ANC rule. You could see it as political, or you can hear the cry of a father’s heart to a child who has been led astray …

Tintswalo (a cry from the Father’s heart)

Tintswalo where are you – 

Where do you go in the night,

The ESKOM night?

Comfort, comfort my people,

Tell them to come home

Out of the night.

Comfort, comfort my people

Tell them to put away their rags, put away their sticks,

Put away all their weapons

And their lies.

Yes, their weapons and their lies.

Tintswalo,

Tintswalo,

Where are you?

Where have you gone?

You wandered away, 

Wandered so far into your past, 

The one they coloured in for you,

The one that never was true,

Your past that never was is now your present, 

That never is, your boasts so full of wind,

You live in the rainless clouds of

Your own imagination. 

Tintswalo,

Tintswalo,

Where is your warm bed

You shared with your lovers?

Where is your newly-built house? 

The wind blows through your house,

The windows are broken,

The fire has gone out.

Your stream has dried –

The waters, they flow no more.

I see a nation that knows not itself.

I mourn for a nation turned away from the Lover of Our Souls.

Tintswalo,

Tintswalo,

Can you hear me calling?

Young girl on every street

Sitting at the head of the road,

Young girl with dirty feet sitting at the crossroads.

Where are you? 

Do you even know?

Do you even know?

Do you even know the Lover of Your Soul?

How could you have let him go?

Tintswalo!

I am calling you now.

Come to the table,

Leave your poison wine.

Put away – put away – put away

All your foolishness, your waywardness.

Come drink,

Come drink,

Pure water, like you once knew 

Come drink, as you did when you were made new.

Tintswalo …

Teshuvah!

(Repost of a blog written on 20 April 2020)

In a dimly lit bar close to the dachas of the energy millionaires, a passionate dance was reaching its bittersweet climax. Hours ago, a shortish, assassin-faced man in a biker jacket had slipped into the insalubrious establishment. A curt nod had greeted him at the door and there was an imperceptible intake of breath as the patrons observed his slow glide towards a corner table with a single guttering candle. Somehow, his usual sleek appearance seemed rather gaunt in the uncertain light, even, phantasm-like.

Shortly afterward, conspicuously underdressed, an awkward  figure in a diaphanous grecian-inspired gown wafted in through another door, that winked a hint of yellow moon briefly and admitted a small entourage. This time, a palpable shifting of feet, a clearing of a throat and some murmurs followed the procession towards the opposite corner; the deathly pale skin of the tall lady at odds with the dusky obscurity of the vaulted, wooden space. Her cheek was a thin pearl lustre in the warm light of her own table’s candle.

The air, redolent of dark tobacco and a slight saltiness, disguised the animal scent of the entwined figure on the floor. Indeed what seemed at first a figure soon resolved itself into two conjoined bodies, pulsing to the strident rhythm of the hidden musicians.

Something about the suave self-conidence of the one, the braggadocio of gait and the laconic slurring of barely-heard dialogue suggested an American overseas on a grand tour, while the forceful, predatory movements of the other hinted at a Slavic sensibility. The strings began to rasp from some unseen corner, as the movements took on an air of desperation, the dancers – now more like swimmers in the deepening gloom – teetered on the edge of equilibrium. With a sudden staccato jab the unseen violinist evoked a violent response from the American, who hurled a rose into the audience. The other figure, now a little more detached, lunged towards his partner and wheeled her away towards the centre of the floor. He grasped the hand wielding a flaming torch and gently prised the fingers open, deftly slipping the torch to his own left hand.

Three elderly men who bore a striking resemblance to Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt looked on impassively; the former remarking that the torch had been passed on with token resistance. The one resembling the heavily moustachioed dictator smiled an unaccustomed smile as if to suggest that freedom is in the eye of the beholder.

The mournful sound of a cello brought the attention of the locals back to the pitiful scene playing out on the dance floor; the American lady had lost all her dignity in the struggle to regain the torch. Her movements and those of her partner were increasingly convulsive, until the torch was flung over the heads of the onlookers. Now the dancers began to argue over a stone tablet as the torch smouldered in a forgotten corner. Lady Liberty in a fit of petulance hurled the tablet away from her partner’s grasp, shattering it into 1776 pieces.

A group of canny fisherman not mesmerized by the unfolding farce left the building as a curtain leapt up a wall in a blaze of light. Spontaneously, the wooden

beams became incandescent and within minutes, to a sickening crash, the roof fell in, leaving a bewildered crowd of onlookers. Still the faceless musicians played on with renewed brio, punctuating each thrust of their instruments with eerie laughter.

Lady Liberty, without her crown and now sans Grecian apparel stood grasping an unfamiliar weapon – a trident. She seemed more Egyptian now and a pair of unfurled wings fluttered ominously in a curious combination of gold and blue. Goaded by the furious crowd of patrons, a large bear circled in for the kill.

My lovely wife and I live in an idyllic little village where horses roam in the streets and the pace of life is slow. We are simple people – yes, some sophisticated refugees from the city live here, but we are people with our feet in the soil.  

We do not understand how diseases can cobble together parts of animals, jump onto humans and drive the world mad. Nor can we conceive of a homeless James Bond setting our Parliament on fire, a president who hides millions of dollars in cash in his furniture and an ex-president who wants to go to court to prove his innocence but is put in jail for failing to appear before the court. No, the world outside is mad. Here, someone’s cows moo outside our gate, in the commonage, grazing freely and no-one steals them, a dog is found abandoned on a bridge outside the village and is immediately adopted, an Egyptian gosling is found floating in someone’s pool and is promptly given sanctuary, after an exchange of concerned communication.

There is outrage when a couple of people are robbed of their phones at a somewhat dodgy wooded area in the dark, horror when petty theft occurs and great concern when there is a suspicion of tik-trafficking. What a naive, sheltered existence we lead, surrounded by abundance, not to mention verdant mountains that just add to the surreal calm and sense of place. Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, we lead our sequestered country bumpkin life! It is a peculiar kind of alternate state of mind – the madding crowd are perfectly sane, while we, the lightly touched, choose to live in a somewhat imperfect, somewhat perfect world. 

It is a delicious land of the lotus-eaters but we do not fall asleep, we drift through states of denial: denial of the modern, the machine, the corporatised world, the bloated (nanny) state and the inhuman march of Mr Global. Our world sleeps in winter, roots gathering strength in the silent dark, while elsewhere, summer crops are grown under LED lights and plastic, berries are flown across the Atlantic in time for a Northern breakfast, chickens live and die in the same spot and new foods are  concocted in a laboratory. Decay and decomposition are not bad words in our vocabulary, they help us see whether something was truly alive; even death is welcome – it is the fire that consumes last season’s green branches. This is not something that pleases the wise of the world these days, those who seek to live forever on the cannibalised parts of others, their horror at the march of time matched only by their fear of having to know themselves. They are those who seek to trade souls in exchange for their own.  

But I am beginning to exchange my lunacy for the enticingly precise, fact-checked world of the sane. Let me rather retreat deeper into my valley, far from the well-worn highways, where lullabies are sung in green, in gurgling waters, in bovine rumination, in feathered chatter and bucolic accents. The people here know who they are, we greet each other in the streets, stop for the horses that cross the road on their own, exchange more than pleasantries when asked “how are you?” We chose the road less travelled and that has made all the difference.

So we kick the yellowing, russet and brown leaves from our front door, contemplate the coming storm with piles of firewood, clear the drains of our lives of any obstacles, harvest the last fruits of the season quickly and preserve their sun-blessed goodness, sharing the abundance with our neighbours. It is an inward season, yet also a time to share comfort around a smiling fire, laughter chuckling from the walls, as we banish the fierce winds that lash at the panes. The floods may come, but we will give our neighbours refuge when their houses fill with mud, the snows may fall, but the thaw will come and provide water for our crops in the spring.

Living in the bosom of God does not give us the luxury of living with abstractions, the mountains chide our vain pretentions of invulnerability, the soil comforts us with its warm wealth and the many rivers remind us that we cannot forget who determines where the rain falls.  

The Burning Shore 

This place found me, she thinks, as her feet flirt with the cool sand and icy fingers that grasp at it constantly, insistently. No middle course here at this abrupt end of the beautiful village, itself an outgrowth of the folded, miraculously convoluted tongue of land swathed on both sides by its blue-green garment. Just like me, the thought mocks her, an abandoned bride, all that desire hemmed in by an ocean. Auburn hair flashes in the clear light, disappears under the surge.

The hills crackle and spit flaming gouts of resin as pines, fynbos, undergrowth is licked up, consumed; tortured cries erupt from nearby as the glen breathes hot anger at this violent intrusion. Childhood memories are obliterated: here, her feet lingered in the little brook, there, on that stump she shaded herself in the high noon, a sanctuary is desecrated, another, a precious refuge from the waves of rage, fear and shame - gone. Time to escape the flames again, time to take all that she has and turn to the wild instinct that has served her so well in the past. 

This time she is not alone. One child on the hip, another dragged sleepily into the Kombi which starts with the requisite sense of drama, heightens the tension briefly then coughs and roars down the hill to safety. It reeks of smoke and old anxiety when she arrives at her mother’s house, the odour baked into every fold of her memory, an acrid cloying thing that curls around those years that should never have been. Perhaps this fire will claim them this time, perhaps she can stop running, perhaps there is a real sanctuary somewhere. Somewhere …

Crisp pines cut the sky, serene, removed from the riot inside. A younger, less encumbered time:   another day far from the burning shore, a measure of solace, friendship, maybe even love. Whatever species it really is. Does it matter? Not the abandoned bride of later - she is the vagabond bride, who chooses her own husband, on a whim - perhaps more than a whim. Who can know the heart, who can understand oneself before the kiln has turned the soft clay into something that can contain the boiling brew that is life? But the beautifully glazed vessel can shatter, oh, it can shatter. The fragments threaten her inner calm, she gathers herself, the corners of her eyes stiffen, swell with the rapidly congealing moisture, a rasping breath racks her soul, an icy peace smooths over the pain, the deep, ruminant waters nearby absorb her aching.  

The house, the fire inside this time - where was the door? The beloved poster, horses at full gallop on a wild beach somewhere, their grey mirrored in the quicksilver shallows and the mackerel sky, catches, first at one corner - the leading horse’s foreleg consumed before it can touch the forgiving sand - then, fire-dappled, the other three twisted, contorted, are mercifully translated into grey smoke. Suddenly, all is incandescent orange: curtains, bedclothes, the carpet, cry out in extremity, her breath is snatched away, she almost stumbles in shock and despair but hurls herself towards the door. Always the door, always the headlong flight with mane flowing in the wind. Outside, a hint of sea calls to her, releasing the chains around her chest. She drops to her knees, spent, but safe now, everything, even rage leaves her, the practiced calm returns. The house squats on the brow of the hill, quiet, the ravening flames and choking smoke invisible. How could one explain to an outsider, an adult, how the walls writhe under your fingers, how your room is razed around you, every vestige of self-possession burnt to the floor by the constant pursuit? How the water in the shower is liquid fire, every seemingly innocuous phrase filled with innuendo, when showing any weakness is to invite the wolf closer?

Her small feet stop outside a friend’s house. Hesitantly tapping on a window, looking over her shoulder, she still hears the dry snake-skin sound of the poster crumpling in agony, feels the thrumming on the floorboards of the blaze underneath …

“Gwen, what’s up? It’s late. You’re scratched all over your legs.”  

“Been running. Through the bush - I’m just a little freaked out right now.”

Her friend opened the window further and urged her to enter in hushed tones. 

“Jeez, you really are freaked out! Are things bad at home again?”

“Ja, dad is on the warpath, something bad got into his head.”
 “You gonna have to go back home some time.”

“I know, but things just need to chill out a little.”

The fire needs to subside, she thought, the wolf must stop prowling. 

An hour or two later, she picked her way up the gentle slope between the darkened scrub and trees, climbed into her sister’s window - damn! The room was empty. Where was her mother? There had been a light in the garage peeping under the heavy door. She dashed across the room, paused at her sister’s door, listened briefly, senses piqued and entered her own domain through the hallway. The poster was still there, her bed, the curtains, the carpets, unravaged. Door locked, relief, mingled with anguish for her sister came slowly over her as sleep claimed her unquiet mind.

The day that dawned was full of delicious fantasies of escape. The frozen North, tropical islands, busy streets, places with funny accents, open spaces, full of air that you can breathe without choking. School had a reassuring dullness but as the days dragged their way into years, the fantasies became jaded, darker, the rage grew. Her body developed a self-contained hardness, her womanhood was drawn under the protection of a hard carapace, all softness concealed within - almost denied. That “almost” saved her.

Oh, the streets of the city with its glaring red busses and innumerable accents had their own fascination, but the people were too cold. Too much energy in that restless heart, too much of everything. Soon, the mjøs and their pure depths became reservoirs for her soul, the borgers were more welcoming than the grey inhabitants she had left behind. Reluctantly, she took her leave of a warm, kindred spirit, a surrogate family. Sniffing the tropical breeze of her imagination, she tossed her head in the direction of the rising sun, Nordic pines faded into palms, the pristine skies morphed into smog-laden humidity that clung to her like regret, wrapped itself around her like the implied violence of the narrow streets, the constant battle in the boardroom. Only in the liquid freedom did she find herself again, amongst rays, dolphins and multi-coloured dancers over the teeming reefs, the water as warm as her seething blood. Instead of the long winter, she had to endure an endless summer from which only a return to the burning shore promised any semblance of wholeness.

It was a marriage of sorts, shared interests, aspirations, two children, houses inhabited together but not a sanctuary for a wounded soul, not two souls becoming one. How could two broken people heal each other? It was typical of her to expect the impossible and typical to be disappointed yet again. The fire had been the turning point, she reflected, this time her instinct took her far from suburbia.

It must have been the horses that drew her up the gravel drive, a sudden snort that revealed four carefree beasts coursing between the rocky hills and eucalyptus trees, which impelled her, urged her to dream again. A roan came to the fence and nuzzled her, gentle breath in her ear, breaking something inside, so she gave herself up to the untrammelled skies, the lush fynbos and the distant murmuring of the sea. The winters were harsh but clean, the summers surprisingly refreshing, winds scouring the green hills embracing the village and always, the cooling touch of the deep blue that slowly nursed the roaring inside to a semblance of calm. 

The house was modest, at times, constricting; nevertheless, the narrow walls were merely physical. Delicious freedom was everywhere: in the air, the rivulets that gurgled in winter, the sultry buchu of the summer evenings and the free-spirited locals. And the view - the unobstructed gaze into her share of this wild paradise - it was a gift! She sowed freely into the community, healing flowed from her hands to those who sought it, a strange medicine she had unknowingly borne with her before her awakening. 

And then, an unexpected intrusion into the relative calm she had established. She knew that the present was merely an uneasy truce between the past and the future, both of which eat away at the boundaries we try to impose upon them. The idea was abhorrent to her but she felt incomplete, half-formed, fragmented. Was it possible that anyone could ever understand her, run their fingers over her scars without recoiling? Could someone see the beauty that only shows when the troubled seas pause long enough to stop pounding their verges allowing the diligent seeker to swim past the shallow reefs, down into the popping kelp forest, the breathing heart of the ocean and absorb it all? Most who fathom those depths come with tools to remove the treasures, sharp knives, spears, bags to carry off the loot, leaving gaping holes, wounds in the very fabric, the weave of that most mysterious of elements. She hardly knew anyone, who like her, would merely follow the light to the visible limit as it refracts, silvering over sand, rock, undulating fish and rusting relics of the world of men, leave fulfilled, as having partaken of a banquet, a smorgasbord of the senses. Perhaps there was no-one else who could see like this.

Perhaps not. A fellow vagabond, a refugee from the mundane, seared by life but still tender. His eyes were too clear, his words too much like the sharp sun off the coarse white skin of the beach. His oblique appearance in her life promised too much, he was an errant comet that presaged some apocalyptic event, bookended by years of obscurity, now blazing old reminiscences across the heavens. Impossible!

“Haven’t seen you for a while but I knew that was you ducking under the waves. You avoiding me?”

“Sort of, lots to deal with at the moment. Feeling a bit caged.” Self-reproach at her unintended candour rose up, was dismissed as he flashed her a look of concern.   

“You know, I do struggle to keep my feelings in check with you. I’m sorry, I’m still not myself.”

They had allowed the waves to push them closer to the rock shelf in the shallows and the sheer face of the buttress that hung over the little bay framed him briefly. Sharp lines merged in a blur of recognition, his angular face juxtaposed with the lichen-covered crag in the distance. The distant past flooded back, feelings, long suppressed, still closely guarded, oozed from her tight control. A ghost of a smile spread from one corner of her mouth.

“It’s not just you, I need to simplify my life right now. Too many people - ” she hesitated, “chasing me - too many demands.”

One of those pauses between them that used to make her uncomfortable had a strangely calming effect now, the sounds of surging inside her quietened sympathetically as they retreated from the exhalations of the sea.

“Things just need to chill out a little.”

“Things never chill out. Your life is far too interesting - you only live once, you know.”

That remark was like an arm around her shoulder, a reassuring assent that there was a vast sea of shared feeling between them. The vagabond bride smiled, inwardly this time, perhaps it was time to stop running. The sand under her feet was burning, the tingling, electric feeling of life returning invigorated her. 

Yes! - she almost cried aloud - Life, not fire!                      

Near darkness. A smoky, stultifying, seemingly dimensionless space, filled with light strains of plucking strings. A raised dais containing two amorphous masked shapes. Behind the golden visage of one it was hard to discern an expression, the mere eyes betrayed a leering smile, dripping with smug malice. They darted through shades of self-amusement like a pianist’s fingers slipping through the octaves, lightly, nimbly with little thought to an audience. To its right sat a more revealing mask which only covered the nose and regions around the eyes and the full almond-shaped lips were almost feminine in their perfect sensuality. 

A little further from these unlikely companions sat a truly feline apparition replete with silver ermine which completed the impression of predatory intent. A pearl-encrusted mask similarly allowed the lips full expression but, paradoxically they were thin and seemed to have been drawn on in the most cursory fashion by a thin scarlet pencil, attenuating even their corners. An elfin chin  pointed downward to a pair of legs elongated such that they dominated the entire frame beneath the mask. The limbs shone in sequins as they flirted with a pair of towering high-heels, in silver cahoots with the clinging dress that rippled and flowed over calves, thighs, abdomen, subtle breasts and angular shoulders. One could neither discern whether the limbs were coiled to strike out or to assume control of the dance floor which glimmered like a dark pool in the moonlight. 

More strange faces surrounded these three from the shadows, occasionally flashing a jewelled surface, burnished gold or silver, often only eyes would be illuminated but every once in a while lips or ears would be visible for an instant and then would vanish into the murky twilight. It was as if the Venetian nobility had stepped out of the pages of history to gather in some obscure watering hole in the middle of nowhere.

The whole tableau teetered on the brink of the abyss, creaking and groaning in agony, an affront to reality itself, a wart in the middle of a beautiful face. From the middle distance, the squabbling voices and surreptitious whispers carried to the ears, confused babbling, occasional barked commands issued forth unceasingly, carried on by a greedy energy that fed from soul to soul. All the while, a melancholic dance, syncopated and throbbing with the strings played upon the air above the voices, urging, cajoling, drawing the throng ever outward from their shadows. Couples would drift outward, approaching each other as if swimming desperately against a current, then swirling and grappling they would pull each other lower and lower until the opalescent surface claimed them – noiselessly. The absence of any expression of surprise might have seemed bizarre to the outsider, for the throng did not even acknowledge the disappearance of some of its members, so engrossed were they in their own inscrutable self-denial. 

The timbre of the music changed, becoming more insistent, more strident, causing more couples to separate, flow towards the dark pool, mingle in their dance to oblivion. As more and more of the masked throng disappeared, the eyes behind the golden visage gleamed brighter, the almond lips curved upward perceptibly and the silver apparition seemed to pulse with an inner fire. 

A lithe figure stole from the murky wings, sans mask, a teasing smile on his lips, the hint of open spaces in his audacious gait. There were few couples still twisting morbidly on the black mirror of the dance floor who soon made way for the anticipated magnetic contact of the silver-clad dancer and the new arrival. His tight-fitting suit was so black as to appear blue in the indistinct light in direct contrast to the ruddy tone of the skin stretched over his face. He matched his counterpart for height, leaning towards her as they finally touched like two gazelles engaging their horns; indeed, an inaudible ‘clack’ seemed to accompany the clasping of hands and collision of shoulders. The rhythm of their movement was both sensual and combative at the same time, undulating rotations were followed by contact that sent puffs of involuntary breath into the thick air. Inexorably the dark stranger toyed with his partner’s stamina, her cool demeanour unravelled, her limbs wobbled and she began to drop her sinuous arms. In a flash, he stripped off her mask, revealing the ethereal beauty of strong cheekbones, rich earth-coloured skin and even the thin lips seemed to have become more generous. A pair of almost-green eyes shone with the elation of discovery, the predatory posture softened, the space lightened visibly, the dark abyss began to close.

A primordial howl of outrage issued from the golden visage as he and his companion rushed towards their protégé, clutching at her dress. In a movement almost too fast to perceive, she shrugged off the grasping hands, flashed a pointed heel at each shadowy figure, sending them sprawling, clutching flushed faces, one of which had begun to bleed. The other, held his almond-shaped lips, now swelling and split in two places. 

The two dancers joined again, more smoothly this time, undulated gracefully between the heaps of discarded masks that had just begun to glow amber in the first warm rays of the sun.  

So many vignettes, stitched together in my consciousness. Snatches of the deep blue from the brow of a hill, the bark of a baboon nearby, cold, nobbly rock under my outstretched legs. A distant man on a roof – running! Empty streets, save for dilettante shoppers, meandering along their daily route. Another convoy of obscenely howling vehicles crawling through the streets, flashing out a soulless warning in dead syllables. Blue lights coasting down the ribbon of road winding round my hill, a deadpan encounter with the guardians of the night: “As long as you understand you are not supposed to be out here – carry on …”. 

But always, the pungent tang of seaweed, the crunch of rock underfoot, quiet moments as a bird perches nearby, robins, starlings, sugarbirds, ever-present crows and ibises, the shocking sight of a seal where previously sunbathers toned their skins, the shifting night sky, an alarm from a startled baboon, the deathly call of an eagle owl. These are the substance of dreams …

Otters sniffle their way to the water’s edge, moonlight on their glossy pelts, caracal invade gardens, porcupines carpet bomb the road with their spines; nature breathes: her calls penetrating walls, mingling with the wash of frequencies around the antennae that pock the landscape, erupt from buildings. She gathers herself, throws off her shy mien and emerges on the vacant stage, growing in stature: sensual, vital, no longer the stepchild, or tawdry wench, her innocence restored. Everywhere her face is to be seen, cast upon the spectral moon – craters for eyes, reflected in the blushing pools at last light, the subtle tracks on the white sands, ever-modulating green of the hills, her visage beams from innumerable jewels in the darkened sky, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, at once aloof and enticing. 

The words of a long-departed poet float across my consciousness: “Man being absent, Africa is good.” Somehow these words jar, disrupt the flow of images …

The nihilism of removing one organism for the sake of another denies the very nature of life, the organic web of interwoven cells, the exchange of energy, the mysterious, indefinable relationship one creature has with all others. Science and reason are apt to reduce all to rule and paradigm when nature is a physical manifestation of the unseen, it needs not a reason to breed, or seek others of its kind, or even to exult in the enveloping skin of the world, to marvel at the sheltering sky. Nature is music expressed in colour, sight, sound, art splashed profusely morning and evening, it can be felt with every sense, can overwhelm the senses with its synaesthetic moments: the green sounds of a forest swaying in the breeze, the hot orange of the desert aloe, the unmistakeable silver that chuckles in a mountain stream. Does this miracle exist to behold itself?

No, Man is intrinsic, holds Nature in a matrix that blends the polarities, Man is water and fire, earth and wind, unyielding bedrock and fluent river, man finds complete expression in Blake’s marriage of opposites. 

This, too is dream and far above the ken of mere language to be conveyed, the mystery of the perfect union of man, woman and thus, divine is the mystery of life. It is only with the edges of our souls that we can reach this summit of being, only with our inner senses fully extended that we are able to hear the music of the divine that we can participate in, tuning our faculties taut, almost to breaking point to capture the notes too high for the ear.

Would that all souls be not dull and fearful of that breaking point in this most noble of endeavours, would that the honesty of being human consumes every self-deception and delusion that has come to be accepted as wisdom. Remove the extra “t” from “truth”, reverse the word and you will see why so many choose to avoid it; instead, choosing its more palatable step-sibling, they fall for Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house, not knowing what lurks inside. 

I had another dream … my feet were coasting over the sands of my favourite beach. I was alone, but there was peace.

Houses seemed deserted but they were soon left behind, even those that crouched on the dunes, encroaching ever nearer to the life-giving water. Even the detritus of man, the human stain, was almost absent in this perfect corner. Mine were the only footprints curving back to the domain of that other life, save for bird tracks, silvered whelk trails and the insect-scurryings of kelp lice. I wanted to sing, but the moment held me in its sacred silence, blue on blue, clothed in the coarse white linen of eons of sublimation of rock and shell. Eventually, words escaped my lips, I breathed out my hymn to the beauty around me as we began to sing together, the tuning fork struck somewhere deep down, vibrating in my core. I say we – it was a dream – because I had lost the thread of myself and together with those unseen ministers who are nearer to me these days, had began to climb a Jacob’s Ladder of melody, counterpoint, impossible harmony, to touch that untouchable realm. 

Cold sea and the whale bones of an old wreck finally terminated this paean, its echoes dusting over the the rusty hulk with more dignity than it possessed. Another holy silence, separated this time from sea and kilometres from the silent dwellings, so that it seemed the wilderness had pressed its searing truthfulness into the moment. Somehow, this failure of man’s endeavour, this stranded surrender to the elements filled me with the wonder of transformation: a purveyor of the dirty goods of commerce had received the impressionist’s brush of soft lines, textured metal; bland colour had been released by a century of sea air to every expression of brown and red the eye could devise. My hand grasped the empty shell of a boiler, enjoying how it pulled at the skin, massaged every tactile organ as its hard carapace shed layer upon layer, becoming elemental again. The crumbling skin under mine, strangely redolent of dark blood, mineral, salty, dripped onto the waiting white shroud at my feet.       

 Humbled again, my knees touched the perfect white, my soul lifted in celebration of this connection of sea, sand, sky and silent ship. The shifting landscape held an unspoken communion, contained the memories that had been deposited here, multiplied a thousand times, mingled with my own that flashed, unscanned over the surface of this suspended time. It was as if the wreck was reading me, locating me on its long-perished chart under the ancient gaze of the cantankerous navigator, who probably refused to leave the ship the night it foundered in the howling storm. The watching mountains dismissed me from this surreal introspection, turning my face toward the living again.

Languid steps, crumpling sand, tang of drying seaweed, delicious cold of the ever-moving face of the sea brought me back over dune to the hard black artery that would convey me to the waking world. Then, voices, at first mocking then screeching insistently, revealed the guardians of this threshold. They wagged violent fingers at me, hurled clashing sounds, spears which I deflected with the shield that peace had granted me, threatened to leave their towers of nihilistic self-absorbtion to compel me into their narrow prison. The icy grip of fear contended a moment with the laughter rising from its well, then broke as I, imperiously, dismissed them with a wave. The perplexing, lingering sensation of the sublime and the jealous hand of entropy slowly brought me back, as the edges of the dream merged into something more substantial.

I cannot say how, but those banshee cries set every jewel that I had taken from that other realm into a breastplate of gold that I wear, now, unseen under my skin. They have placed in my hand a sword that I shake to ward off the grey souls who stalk this world.