A poem on musings about place. The death of a dear Aunt, this week, gives rise to extra thoughts on life and meaning. What is it, what shapes it?

I in Place

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I think of place; places of my living,

Countries, houses, homes of friends,

Backdrop to my life.

Vessels shaping flow, gathering rising steam;

The walls, the floors, the beams.

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Searching for the ‘I’ in each frame;

I, I am the one who watches,

Not tied by location,

Not identified by reaction.

I watch unjudging; feelings, action, growth.

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No place ties me, nor event shakes me;

Standing behind, coolly watching.

I flow with the go,

Unharmed, untied,

River that meanders through my life.

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Kampala 2022

New Year

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I would like to introduce you to my life:

As she stands, a silhouette, frozen in time.

See the difference from the past,

Distance, in one place,

Altered in pace,

Unspeakably important –

As grains of sand in vast space.

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Her stride is long, in immobility, covering miles.

Features calm, more often wreath in thoughtfulness than smiles.

Her movements, though global,

Focus on few degrees of longitude,

Are wide spread in latitude.

Thoughts follow things that matter,

Accepting how they scatter,

Seldom seen but often remembered.

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Each past phase has given depth, and scars

For each, there is acquaintance, new parts,

An expansion of heart.

From pasts of laughter, pain and growth,

Of lessons learnt, of bridges burnt;

How to avoid the same mistakes again?

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Time, perhaps to share of wisdom’s growth?

To recognize, to analyze

Patterns as they re-arise.

Perception most in knowing what remains unknown.

In stepping back, unjudging,

Listening, observing, letting go,

In sensing rivers flow

And flowers grow.

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Kampala 2022

The hot, dry experience of Berseba, Namibia, where the bones of our planet stand out, magnificently exposed.

• 

Berseba

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Bare bones of landscape on planetary scale.

Terrestrial muscles, stretching,

Fibrous within dry topography.

Gullies; dark, deep, damp,

Lines scared across the geography.

Horizon; a silenced volcano,

Sky; clear, high, where flaming peak once roared

black ash, still darkening the soil.

Warm wind drives sand grains,

Grinding every surface, in miniature and immensity.

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Life grips at the edges,

An anvil shouldering wind and sun,

Clinging, clinging lichen-like on.

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Windhoek, 2022