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The Echo Returns Not

Sponsor : Unseeking the Seeker 

[ Poet’s note : SOLOMON MAHLANGU was a South African Freedom fighter & cherished leader in revolutionary army, Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was sentenced to death by hanging, by the Apartheid Government on 2 March 1978 & hung on 6 April 1979. Though he was not actually the cadre who pulled a trigger killing two civilians, the Prosecution argued that under the Law of Common Purpose, Mahlangu shared intent with the cadré who pulled the trigger ]


Four decades and six years have passed
 
at 7.00am 
                  in sweaty coffee plantation not far from Camp 13 I cried and
cried  
for the first time
as an adult, tears were long
cold drops
I cried for Solomon Kalushi 

It was not long after they attacked our camp in south  Angola, Nova Katengue.
throaty sounds made an echo across
the veld, primal, raw
animal
it did not return 
to embrace my thorn scented
bush 

After that attack, we woke up every morning at 4.00am 
to evacuate camp. My platoon was 
the Bram Fischer Platoon, biggest
most powerful. 

We would have our breakfast on the double 
mielie pap, maybe bread 
peanut butter jam
dried fruit 
biltong
coffee
water 
                  then disperse into thorny bush, green bush, whatever bush. 
Bushes were our friends, our guardians, our priests
our lovers, secret holders, our children…
there were trees, but bushes…
these caught our cigarette smoke
our echoes 
They covered us to catch up on sleep
listened to our stories, leaf enriched
….consoled us, hid us, protected us

On that day Afrika’s bushes would not
allow sleep. The sub-continent was writhing.
It heard. Solomon was no more 
no more 
no-one caught up with sleep. The hairs
on our back were on edge.

He had said : “You see, I am just one of many....all we want is freedom…” 
His words echoed into our marrow
like arrows of Robin Hood
not returning to his Heart

Solomon’s echoes composed songs
we sang them like there was 
no tomorrow
we sang in broken sobs
wanted our voices to reach Pretoria
our echoes to cut 
the noose
wanted echoes to fly 
to King Solomon in a far 
                        distant past, for appeal

as 7.00am struck
I was no longer singing
crying uncontrollably.
I was crying for Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu. 

at 7.00am a criminal government 
hung him. A noose around his 
sturdy ebony neck, a tree trunk stump
so stable unmoving
Hangman said : wait a second
          hold on
                        Go now…
he was no more

Solomon’s voice of Freedom Spoke 
his last words : 
            “My blood will nourish
               the Tree that will bear fruits of
              Freedom. Tell my people that I Love them.” 
T e l l   M y   P e o p l e  t h a t  I  L o v e  T h e m

His echo reached us in Katengue
               it did not return  

My Commander appeared 
                      silently before
                      my bush :
“Just cry. You will cry every year on this day.. Maybe I will cry. We are not our bodies.
Keep your eye on the vision.” He spoke like he normally did. In commands.
                   
  ~ ~ ~ 

I thought about his ‘maybe’
trying to see Commander cry, but a
glittering vision instead appeared.

Why was I thunderously crying, watering my 
fragrant bush ? Stoic, I never cried. Not even when best person, Ouma Sanjie, offered her breath to receiving clouds in our dusty warm shack.

I was crying for Solomon who unlocked my heart…with his noose. His death was a door, 
an open door, paid for with a noose. 

Favourite revolutionary songs became
tears… as echoes 
for myself, my country
for Earth, for humanity

for freedom as red
                      Jewel Ruby radial 
now set in my chest
with golden echoes 

thorny bush understood
I was not alone. Echoes 
surrounded our bushes
across the veld 
a bald headed eagle 
soared above

Long live the 
Echo of Solomon Mahlangu
which did not return
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