After Desmond Tutu
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
You arrived in a small black bag, a majestic magenta
plant with roots grasping the dark soil like fingers
firm, your faith always rising to tryst with the sky,
your kiss appetite only for giving. With hungry devotion
you roared a chorus of blossoms hallelujah
we were always meant to be beautiful
and the imperfect world pricked by your secret thorns
bled injustice red bitterness, extraordinary your proud
purple wept into our hearts, laughed up a cerise temple
staining the glass rose, colour spectacle and we followed
the vision for peace from kagiso to bishopscourt
the long legs of your glamour in every garden glorious
thandabantu and now I know what’s right with the world
and what’s wrong, fierce like any animal defending its young
you shriek, dive-bomb like a kiewiet, cry havoc
as parliament catches fire and the land aches
towards sunset, the gold and orange light catching a city
of purple climbers. Tutu’s children of conscience
responding to the season’s urge for change.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 3 March 2022
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