Atlantis
I am muntu – man – meaning
I have no roots planted in the earth
there are roots growing upwards
nurtured by air and by light
I select the Atlantic connection
cut the blade of the North Cape
into the Atlantic body to be sucked
by a warm drive to the Caribbean lust
which gave us life on this unliveable coast
I follow the Atlantic cable
through the ocean-dark depths
from the Arctic ice to Terra del Fuego
past the open, green eyes of islands
I connect the sister Auroras
in bright star-writing
over the sea charts by which I navigate
from the North Cape
to The Cape of Good Hope
*
A hope out of the sea –
against the atrocities of history
in the land which tried to control its
tribes, marked them and sorted them
and kept them apart, to preserve life´s purity
I hold a new nation in my hand
in an old world – not my world
but my world all the same
I touch the scars – the faultlines
what kind of man are you?
the victim asks his torturer, during the hearings
on Truth and Reconciliation, and the reply is:
I ask myself the same question.
*
If I could sing, I would joik
in nomad tracks and in the world´s escape routes
and if I could dance, I would keep the beat
of the heart of Africa, in polyrhythmic orchestration
heart beat after heart beat
while the body of Africa
keeps the human open, movable
If I had the strength to scream, I would scream
the way the big sea birds scream
when they look at the world from above
and can do nothing
*
If I were a man
I would stretch out my arms
and take ”a piece of the rainbow” –
kwammang-a –
a member of the San people´s sacred family
of insects and small animals
I would give the man a rainbow
give the rainbow a world
and give the world a human being
Cape Town – Tromsø, Norway
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