of things past, perdu,
lost. Where are you Cora. There
are wide ice fronds at the bedroom windows,
a different paleontology for each pane.
I am unmanned without you
in this inconsonant dark.
FROM THE IXAM (SOUTHERN CAPE BUSHMEN)
Rain in a Dead Man's Footsteps
When a person dies
a rain starts falling,
filling, erasing his living footsteps,
filling the hollows
of a dead man's footsteps
so the footsteps themselves
will no longer be there.
When we have put
him into the ground,
put him down into his grave,
the rain comes to wash
his footsteps' hollows;
all
trace is erased
of the spoor that we knew.
Even when
we have not yet covered
the grave with cut bushes,
before we have piled
stones on cut bushes
(so the bushes themselves
will not li e there naked),
A rain starts fall ing,
filling his footsteps;
there is rain erasing
the footsteps that were his,
