crossing the Limpopo from the air
endorses the changing pattern of reality
from South Africa to Zimbabwe
from a land marked by hundred-mile fences
by strangely tinted circular patches of irrigated fields
neat farms
straight roads
making direct connections from place to place
across the wide-winding sandy riverbed
uncoiling itself in slow curves across the bush
to a strange patchwork of small fields
wrapping itself around the slopes of the hills
folding over the floors of the valleys
contour-hugging paths and dusty roads
weave between places
around small woodlands (surprisingly still standing)
along invisible rivers
between dusty thatched homesteads
from a delineated and measured world
well-ordered and supervised by man
to organic chaos where the control of humans
is still held on a tenuous thread
the jacarandas are in full bloom
the paradise fly catchers have returned
the garden is a festive celebration of new life
danced by a thousand insects
and filled with the shouts and laughter of small boys
its home…
with power cuts and water shortage and rising costs
and corruption in full bloom in places of power
chaotic, messy and out of control
perhaps it is just the weather that keeps us here
or the warmth of relationship and connections
and the continuous challenge of rising to the next bit of chaos
it’s good to be back
