Masekela!
By Cherbo Geeplay
I can touch the rhythm of your beats,
and sense the chirpy throb; the music
streams it currents to my pulse, the
hair on my skin rises, the trumpet
ricochets, filling the room, seizing the
passages in my veins! I am drifted,
to the swings of the melody, the
harmony synchronizes, its bliss is
on the hill which now fills my mind!
A bass once stole my dancing feet,
Whistling away on the veld in Witbank.
Oh, Masekela. With my snapping
fingers, the pulsating tempo is curving
my arteries, there is feasting in the
fields and a Grazing in the Grass, the
herds with nudged cadences can
barely hold their joy, feeding off the
Jazz, synchronized with Kuti, Makeba,
and the gifted Huddleston. Your
trumpet wore the piano and a voice that
seduced the dancers, caressing to
melodic sway rings the saxophone man,
whose fervor tenor blasted, then won
against Apartheid, now drives away,
leaving me, to an empty room, to
which, sits a set of idle instruments.
Who is going to stroke the trumpet?
And beat the bass, and own the saxophone?
Where his shiny flutes once breathed,
now silence pervades to rust-laden winds.
The gadgets left behind glossed with silvery
gleam beckoning to be picked up from the
stage that once flung them to being in
Soweto. Is it true that Pepper birds live
in those hoary tubes, singing beautiful
strains, whistling to the moon?
Or that in your opus, love invites a
romantic ocean filled with golden surfs,
laced with cords of grooves? Which drifts
softly to the waiting night, to be picked up.
In the music I know, there is hope
flying on the horizon, with no brawls in the
way to hinder its flawless trail,
now lost on the stage that once
flung them to being in Soweto
[in tribute to Hugh Masekela:]
—1939-2018/January
Copyright Adelaide Literary Mag, 2018, NY
Copyright ©
Cherbo Geeplay
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