Thembi

 

She walked slowly,

Lumbering swaying –

Upon ancient migratory

Paths now worn

By their own intricate networks,

     She groaned;

A slow rumble from

Deep in her hungered belly,

The acacia trees

Looking too frightful

To venture food,

 

She had left behind

Her young son,

Somewhere back there

Where ‘they’ didn’t care,

The thirst proving

An absurd death on once

Watered grounds,

     Alas,

‘They’ built the dam,

 

     Tears streaked a southern

Line through the dust that

Settled as she passed

More rotting still,

Their majestic horns

Prized while their

Screams of death could still

Be heard,

 

     She lumbered,

She swayed,

She no longer cared

To flap her cooling ears,

And then she dropped

To the ground

As dust rose,

 

     She thought for a time

About long ago feelings

She was inclined to still believe,

Where everything was plenty,

Where anything was possible;

A herd that knew

The ground was their own -

To frequent populated

Oasis,

     And never there be thirst,

 

     She lay her head down

Upon the dust,

And wondered of

The animal that walked

Upon two legs that -

Killed everything she owned;-

Killed everything from bee’s to birds

To lion and herself,

And she closed her eyes

Against her tears,

    In the dankness

Before life ceased her

Being,

    She knew she loved once,

She knew ‘they’ knew that too,

And the passing of her

Fears let stay within

This real world of sorrow,

Where ‘they’ had ruined all,

And in the twilight;

As she grasped a sense

Of paradise now lost

Upon The Earth;

She bore again her son.

 

 

Michael J Waite 13th November 2013.