My sword

The banking consultant said, “I overheard your request when you were explaining it to my colleague. I saw you were burdened when you came up the stairs. But you still smiled when you greeted.”

He proceeded to tackle my request and, in the process, revealed that other consultants had (presumably unwittingly) blocked progress on the matter for three years, by giving me incorrect information. The consultant frankly expressed dismay and sadness over the fact that I had been given different stories, which effectively translated into loss of not insubstantial sums of money, with the bank benefiting on the side. Possibly the other consultants had not been adequately trained, or, due to innate lack of curiosity or interest, were simply inadequately motivated to assist.

The consultant had a mean wound on his forehead, which I was tempted to ask him about – had he been bitten by a dog? It was healing well, but it must have been a shocking and painful incident. Nothing in his manner, however, showed that the wound meant anything to him at all and it occurred to me that it might be intrusive of me to ask him about its origin, as it evidently did not cause him pain anymore and he had probably forgotten all about it. Indeed, he was giving all his attention to my finance-related instruction.

While he was working to resolve my situation, a little orange and black bug appeared out of nowhere on the camouflage trousers I was wearing. He was agitated, as bugs tend to be: busy feelering his way through a mission that was a mystery to me. I offered him my finger, which he climbed, scurrying up towards my wrist. I looked around.

“Is there a plant somewhere here?” I asked, but saw only non-living materials: comfortable chairs, sleek desks and counters, laptops, windowed cubicles, and numbered lockers in the space.

“Oh,” exclaimed the consultant, as his gaze moved away from the screen and fell upon the little creature exploring my hand, “I’ve never seen one like it!”

“Would you mind,” I queried, “if I run downstairs quickly and release it outside?”

“Not at all,” he replied.

I hurried past other clients, waiting in huge settees, who might have raised eyebrows, imagining that their patience was being tasked by the needs of a little orange and black bug, had they not also been surprised by the unlikely miniature adventure taking place before them. It was mizzling outside and I set the lithe little beetle into one of the trees that lined the village centre’s parking lot. It would be able to quench any thirst it might have, by sipping a watery droplet, and hopefully be able to make a new life for itself here. I jumped back up the stairs two at a time, aware that my body wasn’t quite acting its age, I am a woman nearing sixty, who has to watch her back. I slowed down enough to retain both health and dignity.

The consultant was still waiting for another department to answer his call and so, I, as well as the people seated around, were obliged to wait. The banker’s gentle presence exuded such patient peace that I felt moved to continue working on a poem that had come to me a couple of days before. I opened my notebook and quietly edited the lines. To my joy, they took on a shape I could not have predicted, a beautiful and profound shape I felt extremely pleased with. In that moment I realised that I must dedicate the poem to the banking consultant. It was a strange experience – an experience I have had over and over, without its ever being the same – of doing something I had never done before. I must set aside self-consciousness, all fear of embarrassment or doubt and judgment, and obey the impulse.

I wrote the poem out in full and dedicated it to the name displayed on the consultant’s tag. When he was done on his side, he gave me all the details of my case, explaining that, since it was a Saturday, my instruction would only be processed on Monday. I expressed my gratitude: he had helped me finally to shed a three-year financial burden. Then I told him what I had been busy doing in the meantime.

“You might have heard the expression that the pen is mightier than the sword,” I said, adding, “I am a poet and had been mulling over an unfinished poem. Your kind presence helped me edit it to a state I am very happy with. So I have dedicated it to you.”

I read the poem aloud and gave it to him. It's a few lines describing the shape and colour of a leaf, showing how it resembles a sword's blade and has its 'hilt' attached to the twig that joins it to the whole tree. The consultant's presence allowed me to understand the lines expanding their meaning to include the Tree of Life, upon which the poem is a small, green leaf, reflecting both the power of the word as well as the connectedness between living beings.

My sword

For Bradley Barnado

Sun through leaf:

bright blade

of green. Red at the hilt:

attached to twig, the holy place,

where sap flows from the tree

into your being.

“Thank you so much,” he said emphatically, “that is so beautiful! I will treasure it!”

He folded the piece of paper and added, “I am so glad I met you!”

“I feel the same,” I replied, “your attentiveness and kindness have made my experience in the bank this morning very special.”

“Thank you! Would you mind saying these things to my manager, emailing her?”

“Not at all, what is her email address?”

“Please also speak to her directly?”

He took me down to her cubicle, but she was not there. I promised to wait for her a few minutes and we said good bye.

When the manager arrived, I told her, “This young man is a gem,” and related what had transpired. She was delighted and asked me please to email her my feedback, something I have yet to do. I will certainly include the link to this blogpost.

A banking consultant who has time for a bug to be freed, and to hear a poem he feels privileged to treasure – he is a man of the new earth in deed. And the old earth, I’ve no doubt, agrees. Wounds do heal, mistakes can be corrected, and a mere leaf can tell us more than we might imagine about the Tree of Life.

– Silke Heiss, 3rd December 2023

Wild life is a tangible dream

Just before lockdown last year, my beloved and I moved from the mountain hamlet of Hogsback to a house on a coastal dune, where kikuyu grass had been planted without thriving.

Behind the house is farmland, where wilde els, afrikaners, arums, metalasia, vygies, felicias and dune daisies, christmas berry (chironia baccifera), bulbinella, buchu, salvia, podalyria, varieties of restios and other fynbos species make a life for themselves between invasive acacias and reeds (which the farmer clears occasionally). To our joy, we discovered that a healthy number of species of wild birds, tortoise, mongoose, porcupine, duiker, possibly even Cape grysbok, share this area.

Amid the wild sub-alpine grasses in Hogsback, I had grown accustomed to the close company of birds, bees, beetles, skinks and shongololos; it made sense to create similar meadow conditions now, once more inviting the small creatures near. Wild life keeps me sane.

To begin with, we let the wild grasses and bushes completely take over - you could say that we deliberately neglected the ground. Small felicias appeared in spring and clovers blossomed merrily. Then, between them, we planted an array of lavender bushes and butterfly-bush (gaura) from a nursery. We left all the weeds and scraggly grasses to continue to do their bit between the molerat hills, trusting that over time, a natural balance would even things out.  

Our neighbours on one side, who are only seldom in their house, employ a garden company, which regularly, noisily razes their sun-scorched 'lawn' further down to sand, no matter the white-flowering succulents that try, despite everything, to survive in the barren ground. Recently we noticed candelabra flowers (brunsvigia) popping speary red shoots out on their property. Luckily, the neighbours came for a visit just then and we could get their very glad permission to move these glamorous plants, before they be decapitated by the machine-minded company.

No sooner had the candelabra flowers been transplanted than three greater double-collared sunbirds - two females and a male - came to feast on the nectar. They were completely unafraid of our proximity, showing us that our dream is perfectly tangible.

Our dune stands out in the suburb by looking 'untidy', 'wild', 'neglected', even. Yet no: it is cared for and loved, for being at one with the dry season coming, now, to its natural end. Nor is the space unnecessarily howled upon by that terrible suburban neurosis, the leaf blower. 

We hope that our tiny farmland-type garden might, over time, set a trend. Reeling your dreams in, bringing them home to where you actually stand and walk, gives simple happiness a chance. 

Her focus remains with me

It was in the Kruger Park, in 2002, maybe? A while back, anyhow.
I woke earlier than the others and footed down to a fenced water-hole, fed by a river, near the camp.
Traipsing around the perimeter, I was alarmed by heavy snuffling and snorting sounds.
In the din of numerous bird calls, wild dog yaps and yodles and, who knows, hyenas? - in other words, the bright summer dawn's natural orchestra - I could not discern the origin of those very close-by, heavy breathing sounds. The water still lay completely in shadow and trees and reeds created dark, secret nooks.

Then, miraculously, as it seemed, I was spotted - targeted by an eye with raised eyebrow, as it felt.

The hippopotamus' large pupils floated peacefully on the silvery surface, keeping focus all the time on me, even as her enormous body slowly turned, now left, now right, balletically below the water.

She - it was a lone hippo and, for all I know, a he ... but I'll allow myself the luxury of projecting my own gender onto him - now that I had identified her, or she me, she breathed her morning bath's utter tranquility into my own heart.

She never disappeared.

I left, eventually, having less time to myself than she did, and she slid into the deep shadows further down the water-course.

But she has stayed with me ever since.

Anne Keating, in her book Wild Voices, gives the word contemplation as key for this animal. She writes:

Hippopotamus is Female, expressing the quality of:

Quiet Retreat 

By contrast, Credo Mutwa, in his book, Isilwane, writes:

The hippopotamus is regarded by African people as a symbol of rebellion, uncontrollability and unruliness.

Furthermore, "it is also an animal of confusion. It cannot make up its mind whether it is a rhinoceros or an elephant!"

The Zulu word for hippo, Mutwa writes, imvubu, can mean 'the mixed-up creature' or 'the creature which is unable to make up its mind what it is.' 

When I used to tune into the spirit of what for me is quite a frighteningly fearless animal, the hippo, I found that the quality of confidence surfaced more than anything else. The hippo's confidence, however, was something I knew eluded me always - at least it did in the uncool human world.

Recently, she has snuffled herself back into prominence in my consciousness. Her beautiful raised eyebrows keep gazing her sensitive intelligence towards my soul.

Mutwa's own praise poem to the hippo speaks to the privilege of my encounter. Here are some extracts:

You, whose eyes see everything

And whose ears can hear the smallest whisper of a lover hidden among the reeds 

[... ]

Your feet can dance where no Zulu can ever dance

And no Venda can ever gyrate 

You dance under the waters

You dance under the lakes

You rejoice among the reeds

[...] 

You are the light that mocks me as I approach a great lake
You are the great pumpkin of Africa that walks on four legs, delighting those who see you
Oh animal of love
Oh animal of fertility
May your snorting always be heard in the great lakes and the rivers of Africa!

Photo by Tambako The Jaguar/Flickr

Why should spring not meet with winter?