Township Angels
- Details
- Written September 2012
The informal settlement comes alive with fleeting images
Embedded in the memory of the unseeing retina
Under a blackened sky filled with puffs of smoke
From bruised bottom lips battered by fury and fun
Covered in make-up of mini-skirted temptation
Under a lamp-post piercing the cloud of uncertainty
With a handbag of condoms, flirting with the angel of death
Who scatters HIV like pumpkin pips rolling off the roof
Washing down gutters and racing on in the deluge
With yesterday’s blister pack of left-over ARVs
That lands a block away for another angel
Winged with maroon epaulettes, saying serve and save
By breaking through barriers of silence and separation
With a message of hope that outweighs moans of despair.
Memories of a visit to Masiphumelele stirred by seeing visually impaired artist, Rachel Gadsden's depiction of Khayelitsha at the South Bank Centre, London.
September 2012
A street corner in Masiphumelele, Western Cape
Swartberg Scrum
- Details
- Written April 2012
All was fine until they broke the rulesWith a minor fault in passing, so the whistle blows
And three rows form up, unlovingly locked together
To prove their worth and gain the upper hand;
Props and locks flanked by floating land masses,
Their continental energies multiplied sixteen-fold,
Ready to be unleashed with geological force
In global encounter as the creator orders them
To bow down, head to head, with the word: ‘Engage’.
So tectonic plates converge in slowest motion
Straining backs and bodies until they fold
Into a writhing mass of rock and shifting sands.
As Newlands cheers the disentangling heap
The mountains settle into grandeur, perfect and still.
April 2012
The Swartberg is one of the best examples of folded mountain chains in the world. These have been formed over millennia by continental plates in collision, rather like rugby forwards in a scrum, and then collapsing into the beauty we enjoy today.
Click here for photographs of the Swartberg Pass and the Karoo
Drakenstein Freedom
- Details
- Written March 2012
Determined non-conformist reformers arrive
As dispossessed Huguenots ready for something new
Shedding the cloak of oppression as they leave Europe behind
Kicking off pantofles to roam the vineyards, [i]
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling liberté, liberté. [ii]
Dogged campaigner ready for release
After a quarter-century’s detention for sabotage
Leaving the barbed wire with clenched fist and new shoes
For a world waiting for something better,
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling amandla, awethu. [iii]
Resolute Afrikaners approach the mountain
To celebrate a language woven from a converging past
Absorbing the idiom of the day to become something new
So they can tie up their velskoens with pride, [iv]
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling work harder, work harder.
March 2012
There are three significant monuments in the Drakenstein Valley in South Africa’s Western Cape:
- the Huguenot Monument in Fransch Hoek,
- the Nelson Mandela Statue where he was released from the Drakenstein Correctional Centre (Victor Verster Prison), Paarl
- the Afrikaans Language Monument on Paarl Mountain.
Click here for photos of Drakenstein Valley
Photos:
Huguenot Monument, Fransch and the Mandela Statue, Drakenstein Correctional Centre - © Paul du Plessis
Afrikaans Language Monument - by courtesy Chell Hill
Afrikaans Language Monument Nelson Mandela Statue, Drakenstein Correctional Centre
As dispossessed Huguenots ready for something new
Shedding the cloak of oppression as they leave Europe behind
Kicking off pantofles to roam the vineyards, [i]
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling liberté, liberté. [ii]
Dogged campaigner ready for release
After a quarter-century’s detention for sabotage
Leaving the barbed wire with clenched fist and new shoes
For a world waiting for something better,
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling amandla, awethu. [iii]
Resolute Afrikaners approach the mountain
To celebrate a language woven from a converging past
Absorbing the idiom of the day to become something new
So they can tie up their velskoens with pride, [iv]
While the turtle dove tip-toes forward
Calling work harder, work harder.
March 2012
There are three significant monuments in the Drakenstein Valley in South Africa’s Western Cape:
- the Huguenot Monument in Fransch Hoek,
- the Nelson Mandela Statue where he was released from the Drakenstein Correctional Centre (Victor Verster Prison), Paarl
- the Afrikaans Language Monument on Paarl Mountain.
Click here for photos of Drakenstein Valley
Photos:
Huguenot Monument, Fransch and the Mandela Statue, Drakenstein Correctional Centre - © Paul du Plessis
Afrikaans Language Monument - by courtesy Chell Hill
Afrikaans Language Monument Nelson Mandela Statue, Drakenstein Correctional Centre
[i] A 17th century French slipper; the Afrikaans for slipper – pantoffel.
[ii] One of the most distinctive of South African bird calls, with prolonged emphasis on the middle syllable.
[iii] The rallying cry of the ANC – ‘power – to us’
[iv] Southern African walking shoes made of rough tanned leather and pronounced fell-skoons.
Fish Hoek Visitor
- Details
- Written March 2012
They were all mere visitors
Splashing in the surf, united by the sea,
While others kept guard beyond the breakers;
Patrolling submarines, watching the waters,
Telling possessive land-lubbers to stick to their turf
And that they’re unwelcome in no-man’s-land;
Warning trespassers they’d be prosecuted.
So the shark-spotter gets the message,
Relaying news to the signallers
And the black flag rises
Expecting something worse
So the bathers retreat to their sand castles
Saying something needs to be done about this invader
As they grumble about the Great White Shark.
The Playmate
Basking sun-bathers twitch whiskers,
Flopping from rock to rock
Until she dives in, disturbed by curiosity
To frolick in the kelp gardens.
Ballerina of the waves,
Her own tutu glistening in the sun,
Wanting to play ball
In a balancing act on the tip of the nose
Pirouetting in figures of eight
Flippers streaming over the face
Expecting something worse
As the predator joins the mime
And the seal disappears in one fell swoop
And onlookers wish the end were different.
The Fisherman
Deep sea divers pierce the waves,
Harpooning yellow-tail;
Cormorants taking their share of the catch
Robbing the trekkers of their haul
Then straightening up the bends of decompression
After a night on the rocks
Now hanging out to dry on a cross
While watching the rise and fall of the tide
As though there were nothing more to do
Than roll up the washing line, put away the pegs,
Fold up the clothes and pack the case,
Remembering that they caught nothing
But a touch of the sun and the desire to return
To do something about that unwanted visitor.
March 2012
The Great White Shark has lived in False Bay for decades and longer, but only recently become a threat to bathers. There are plans to erect a protective net.
Images above:
Great White Shark – from Wikimedia – © Terry Goss
Brown Fur Seal – from Wikimedia - © Hans Hillewaert
Crowned Cormorant - from Wikimedia - © Sławek Staszczuk
Image below:
The black flag on Fish Hoek Beach, indicating 'poor spotting conditions'.© Paul du Plessis
For more photographs of Fish Hoek and the southern Cape Peninsula click here
Trailblazer
- Details
- Written August 2024
Well-known, well-travelled, familiar and on the map
Into areas of comfort most would have chosen.
But no broad street or narrow lane for her,
Not even the hint of the track
Forged by creatures whose instincts make their path.
But love for others drove her on, so she went -
Bundu-bashing her way into the unknown:
Misunderstood, scorned, almost crucified,
Yet some enviously wishing it was them,
Others giving her celebrity status,
Until she stepped off the pedestal back to the ordinary.
She got there - she’d made it,
And others now follow her way.
August 2024
Thinking of someone else after reading William Wordsworth’s She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways