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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2020
It's been a long journey, this
Moving endlessly
In circles
Leaving no visible footprints
Watching bridges melt before my eyes
I had learnt to swim
And swam across rainbow rivers
At the first border
Palpable fear surfaced
The beat of my heart too loud
Too fast
Sweat pumping out
Once across I became another person
Split between time
A before and a then
A stranger in a land of bright colours
Undulating mountains
A language that expressed itself with
The slowness of eternal leisure
I became a stranger-who-felt-at-home
I learnt the language and to laugh
In the music of the river
Winds heralding
An inversion of power came blowing
I was in there in the throng,
Adding my voice to
The Get Out Movement
I dreamt dreams of a life of free wrists and ankles
Unchained voices becoming a chain
Of resonant meaning
In that lustrous land of winter sunshine
Cries and machine-gun-fire
Ricochet..chet..et..t…
Starting to torment us
Echoes of cries within our eardrums
Bursts of hurt feelings in our hearts
Streams of rumbling blood that tug at us
To cross the border once more forever to do or die
Bruised
Hunted
Pursued
By bullets
And sniffer dogs
Because of this
I was no longer the stranger that-felt-at-home
Because my host
Was visited by cold fear brought by hot winds
From across the border
I understood the fear, embraced discretion to
Become at home
Up North I crossed borders
Chose the darkest spots in unknown lands
Occasionally travelling in circles crossing a border
Thrice in an attempt to breathe free
Once I met the Makonde who had traded
Mallets and chisels for AK47s
They carried me on their backs
Across another border
Once more I became Mukimbisi, a stranger
This time it was said without malice
Instantly I was-at-home
I carved with the Makonde
Heard the Shetani spirit sing in myriad voices
A tourist, a Nixon-look-a-like demanded
An authentic carving full of wild spirits
When he was told about these spirits
He changed his mind and asked for a ‘different spirit’
An old sculptor asked him to come the following
Week and his spirit will be ready
The spirit came in a carving of a man whose mouth was open
His tongue a snake with a forked tongue
Whose body traversed the body of the man
Its tail emerged as a giant phallus
The Nixon look-a-like loved it
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