Dear Katy

Dear Katy

I was told you are buried in the row

alongside the highway

under a tree

along the fence I walked to them

reading names heavy with someone’s longing

none of the Khadijas I found were you Katy

I saw a man with a prayer book in his hand

standing as still as the trees and

I didn’t want to break what he had by the

leaves that would have crushed under my foot

and I left

not having found you

but knowing that the prayer I sent from my car

will get to you somehow

we could picnic in your cemetery

the sweeping spaces clipped green

and neat

the benches good for cupping us

between the hum of traffic

and the slow hush of grass

sectioned off by census of faiths

in death too we choose to lie close to our own

you would have told me so

perhaps it is that when we rise again

it will be among comforting commiserators

or if we did happen to call upon God by a rightful name

there’d be no rubbing our neighbours’ noses

in more dirt than they were accustomed to

red mounds of heaped soil for most Muslim graves

green perspex stenciled names

prayers for the highest stages in Heaven

among the few entombed and headed by

granite supplications more adamant

and then there are some with a clutch of

scratched-on plywood sticks

like plant markers

these grave gardens

grief wistfulness tend

careful beds of succulents

blooms flourishing both wild and contained

in pots and vases like

ornaments in your mother’s display cabinet

I will return to look for your tree

in this nursery of loving wives devoted husbands

dear friends and fallen angels

I will look for you  in the golden hour

when the day draws over your grave

gentle and warm God tucking you in for the night

and it feels like we’re nearing

the end of something perhaps

a hope that Death will not sneak up behind us

but walk towards us giving us

time to prepare.

New York (pre-Sandy)

My thoughts on this city of cities lay latent on the pages of my notebook. Until I submit my MA portfolio (which I meant to complete before we left SA but for my crazy paving intentions) there is no space for any other writing.  My deadline is next Monday and I’m hoping I’ll be smashed in the head with some fecund profundities from then on.

I do have pictures though.

Istanbul in 6 Hours

This post was written in October of 2012. Visa processes may have changed since then.

 

I’m posting this seven days after the fact. More on our time in New York to follow.

If you’re flying Turkish Airlines with a transfer in Istanbul on the same carrier and have more than ten hours of in-transit time ahead of you, you’re eligible for a free city tour. Our exploration of this iconic settlement straddling Europe and Asia began with a two hour appraisal of  its airport as we shuffled from information desk to information desk to queue to security check. Jet lag must have garbled the gutterals of our South African accents to unintelligible levels, as ground staff dismissed our queries as the pipe dreams of the travel-weary.  We traversed over stock granite tiles in Arrivals to dark-grey wood laminate that updated the ambiance in Duty-Free, bowed over by our backpacks and the lament; Oh Istanbul, is this it? Eventually, one savvy desk clerk saved her city for us.

This is what you do to get onto a free tour of Istanbul (provided you are more than ten hours in transit and are flying Turkish Airlines for both nodes of your journey):

  • South Africans proceed to Passport Control 2. A free visa will be entered into your passport and you’re good to go.
  • Follow the exit signs and make your way towards the Hotel Desk (located across Starbucks). Show them your boarding pass and they’ll put you on a time-appropriate tour. There are baggage lockers right next to the Hotel Desk, it cost us 30 Turkish Lira to check two backpacks.
The tour includes a light breakfast and lunch and covers the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome and surrounds, Hagia Sophia and the Spice Bazaar. It’s a quick scratch over the city and you get a bit of free time in each area to soak up some vibe.

Prayer

Prayer

I seek you out
in the cradles of hands
between the creased ditches
and the padded mounds.

My thumbs are search parties
covered in prophets’ ink
rubbing through piles
on prayer mats.

In a palmful of Joburg snow
children see you clearly.

Growing Bones

Published in Poetry Potion 2012.04 (5th Anniversary Edition)

Growing Bones

First soft and unknit
to mould through mothers
to begin this work
of hardening frame
growing upwards
to fall free when six
from the top of the world, fracturing fear
and breaking in three places
casting a school-term in plaster
scribbled on in fruit-scented markers.

Bones, I drink to your strength.
The milk, always, in tall glasses
good for glugging in one go
and skillful lickings
of wet-white mustaches after.

Under stretched-out bras and holy panties,
I scribble bones into perfumed diaries
that close with a heart-shaped lock
pickable with a paper clip.
Bones, you make good backs
built to bend
under the weight of adolescence
and spring up
when
the world becomes
ready
for a woman.