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
Copyright ©
Ghairo Daniels
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