Critical Thought

Critical Thought

Eyona indala

Date Released: Wed, 14 November 2012 11:43 +0200

By Harry Owen, Rhodes University Alumnus

 

We intrude, of course, as we always do.

But we’re accepted here, invisible,

sitting downwind in the Land Rover

and sharing the sun’s drumcrush with five great

grey boulders whose heads are sculpted in rock

like presidents. It is hot, growing hotter,

this time-slip into African prehistory,

a long migration from the angry snarl of freeways.

 

 

When at last they turn to the shade of thicket,

through knives of acacia thorn, they make no sound,

none at all, these giants of the moon.

Their silence is the phantom of a used-to-be

ancient presence, their honouring of soul.

 

 

Eyona indala: isiXhosa – ancestor, oldest of the old

 

 

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