Her face tipped to the sky, shut eyes and a smile of resolute warmth.
Her dark skin felt and celebrated by the sun,
legs crossed on the sandy shores, hips indent the soft floor.
Lips parted to voice her name, one that clicks on her tongue, one engraved
in the sand but never washed away—not by the Dutch,
or the British, or the French. She sits at the edge of Gamtoos River,
the place of her birth, where the water first embraced her.
A deep breath in and salt pushed in from the ocean hits her nose,
settles her, and at once tears stream down her face.
Her face wet, but lacking shame. Ears
rapt by the steady drum beat of commemoration.
She cries for her fiance, whose blood stains dry up
and choke out the match lock musket. For the baby she bore,
not long before it crawled back into her womb and shriveled.
For her father, whose scent lingered like his skin glistened,
for under the kiss of the heat he guided cattle, slow and deliberate and sweet.
Despite his incessant stench she often nuzzled into him,
sniffed his bare chest. Now her nose does not recall,
her tears strike the river, meet in communion to honor his silent fall.
Tears for her mother whose face is but a distant memory, who only cradled her babe until she turned two or three.
She weeps and
at the back of her throat sings a persistent roar.
Her grief shall not be ignored, it sweeps across
To distant shores.