Agnus Dei

Dawn Garisch

On the counter, in the folds of a white dishcloth,

are the simple contours of a lamb's face,

its small body lying curled and swaddled,

sleeping as though the world has conquered

its hate, as though a lamb might lower its guard,

lie down and sleep, knowing it’s safe.

from the collection Disturbance (Karavan Press, 2020)

Featured on 4 March 2021

His Grandfather's Toolbox

Kobus Moolman

Does a heart beat here inside

the man asked and he banged

the old wooden box, the box

that his grandfather stored his

old tools in, the tools to repair

his old orthopaedic boots, and

if there is a heart here he asked

as he counted the loud feet of

the pedestrians, and counted

the loud feet of the old oak tree,

as he banged the old wooden

box of his ribcage, then can I,

can I trust my blood still, can I

trust my old hands to keep the

lid shut so that nothing leaks out?

Featured on 11 February 2021

Troubadours

Jacques Coetzee

In the end, you said,

it wasn’t their love of learning

that saved them.

Scholars would have rediscovered

Homer and Ovid, Plato and Aristotle;

written commentaries on them for a thousand years,

yet never produced

the lament of Héloise,

or Francis of Assissi

preaching his heart out to the birds,

or Dante walking the goat-paths

and looking for the stair to heaven.

In the end it was the turn

inwards that transformed them:

the love of someone

hidden deep inside the one they were talking to;

the bewilderment

of having to keep body and soul

together;

the clash of two worlds just beneath the skin,

between one peal of sacred bells,

one song, one forbidden kiss

and the next.

Featured on 4 February 2021