Silke Heiss
Old ram,
your big, brown body,
resting where you slept
– under that grand white stinkwood –
on this cold morning.
The delicate white line,
arcing along your spine,
your leathery, grey neck and head,
the two white stars on your jaw, by your smile,
I note, as if I were a painter.
I heard a famous writer say
there are too many South African nature poems,
so she writes about people.
I'll not argue with her preferences,
nor deny myself the nourishment
of your brownness and your greyness,
your purple tongue and ink-black eyes,
that teach me gentleness
and strength.
I'll guard your self-renewing peace –
testify:
not all members of the human race
are racing,
and grace
will take the form
of blood and muscle, hair and skin, and patience
– forever, and today.
(published in This Recurrence of Light, Ecca, 2022)
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 4 August 2022 as one of the Ecca poets