The Echo Returns Not

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