This is the sea

After a photograph by Victor Dlamini

Rustum Kozain

There is that sea, deep sometimes

as the heart at dusk,

the shine on its face soon to fade.

There is that caravel drifting in

and all it brings: a load of good

and the bad unreckoned by the quartermaster.

The homing birds that come or go.

The sun that’s set,

now only a shade smudged by fog.

From empty rooms, frosting windows,

no one saw

its dying spectacle.

There is something of this sea –

its cold and darkening deep –

in the human heart, in me,

that lies unfathomed,

beyond all sounding,

that does not know its own dark treachery.

from Groundwork (Kwela/Snailpress, 2012)

Featured on 2 December 2021