ALUTA CONTINUA

ALUTA CONTINUA : FORCED REMOVALS ( Poet’s Note : I’m posting this poem here as a South African history student recently asked to interview poet on Forced Removals. I read this poem which he enjoyed. I thought it might interest other SA history students who too were studying aspects of the country’s Apartheid past. It first appeared in : A Collection of Memoirs on District Six titled District Six Memories, Thoughts and Images/ Attic Press, 2021, as part of a collection of nine poems on Forced Removals ) We willed concentrated power circled in cobalt blue fields of strawberries and dagger beckoned irrespective of consciousness A sorry state of affairs when battles between Darkness and Light continued unabated Aluta Continua ! How is this ? To live as Spirit-woman, Tiger-turtle waves of dragons fast and smooth to digest one egg in a fridge of bones serve unquestioningly as District Six dissolves lymph longed for ten oranges in a meadow with Ruth on silvery Planet Mercury Aluta Continua ! Far is luminosity when a path was already cleared A test is at the door looking up at new windows in flat townships tugging at deep black pools of wondrous confusion in fright and resistance she was so innocent ! Soft marshmallows stood in Sun as delight and enticement A battle of swords and cups diamonds and diggings Let go ? A still pond attempting not to ripple silent space in a battle of steel I am here…my home dissolved Whose to know the difference ? Gulls swirled above surrender to destinies written in cursive cupboards filled with old clothes burnished gold remained stuck in crevices Boxed up District Six lay naked, bruised, torn Aluta Continua ! Through lifetimes of sorrow as step by step, inch by inch chains loosen, shackles shake under flat Table Mountain ghosts in the District watch then play sucking dewdrop pears for a sense of power gained We are gone. Aluta Continua ! A body bent down to pick up offerings from begging knelt in humiliation or was it humility ? as black energies flashed white with faith to suck up survival drink in a second what was distilled in a fortnight of fasting and maniacal meditations that stank of spiritual exhaustion in purple drunkenness Cells were clear, open hearts exposed receiving offerings from Sky and all that went before all that was to come A gong went round, round pealing and pealing forever, without end still sores bled bright blood star circles tinkered afar grasping for that which slipped in the distance on a removal lorry when all seemed lost Aluta Continua ! Some say they prepared a thousand years for a single silent move a lifetime of prayer for an hour’s Grace A sickly soul looked to recapture what escaped in the night Cape Doctor blowing grey sand soft tears showing the way to a new flight of stairs ©GhairoDanielsPoetry&Song +-1997