Wood With a Mellow Breath
With palms so chaste and a grip so pure
She wraps her fingers around the mallets
Letting them sit in the space between her thumbs and first fingers;
When she makes her first few strokes
Hammering smoothly up and down,
There is no other sound but
a breast of ribs whose mopane mellows the ear
And a throat of cigarette paper
whose hum somewhat bellows unto the heart;
Then she sings a ballad of two lovers whose clans forbid it,
Soon the astound trees rustle in accord,
Her voice is a wrench that loosens the valves in my eyes;
Tears collecting with the first few words,
I wish my lover was here with me.
After thirteen stanzas, my lonely eyes leak with homesick-tears ...
Deep in the ridging belly of the Zambezi valley,
A lily of the Kariba has found
grace in her hand with the xylophone.
17/07/17
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