ikhaya lam

    a broken, speckled bird with brittle broken bones sticking through the skin of its little twig-legs and a soft severed wing hanging limply at its side will laugh in delight at being found.   you can hold it as long as you don’t look at the broken legs maybe you should cradle the bird (and its legs) in your arms, or a box, and make the long journey up the hill   or maybe you should kill it quickly, with one slash of a sharp knife extinguish the ignorant life left in it so you don't have to contemplate its pain.   couldn't bring myself to kill it when I had the choice now I have to stare at the broken legs without looking away    Susan Jamison: Memento Thrush Bouquet                  

    No, I'm not LGBTQIA+ . And if you don't know what that means, shame on you click on the letters to find out.      [...waiting for the Flintstones to find their way back from the link...]    Ah, I see you're back.   Sit down.    Let me tell you a story.    At the beginning of this globally conspicuous year a scorpion killed my kitten . I had loved the little critter - the cat, not the scorpion - and I was devastated. Hannes had been given my Dad's name in a hubristic temptation of fate and fate answered. The small, soft, patched body that used to perch on my shoulder and purr into my ear while I sat at my desk lay lifeless under the Oregon pine kitchen cupboard where he'd crawled in to die. I sat outside on the gravel and howled like a mother who'd lost a child, because I had.   His favourite place I thought expressing grief during the loss meant I wouldn't stuggle with depression afterwards. But I stayed listless in ...

Proloog Werk Oorwin Alles Ek lê in my witgeverfde kleindogtertjiebed met die blink, goue randjie rondom die gladde houtkopstuk. Dis seker nie rêrige hout nie, eerder 'n soort plastiekhout, die oppervlak veels te glad om eg te wees. Die dik winterlaken met sy fyn blou blommetjies voel growwerig onder my ken en teen my nek. Dis handgewas en ruik effens na Omo. Ek is nege jaar oud en lê laataand wakker in my winterpajamas onder wolkomberse, voor die tyd van duvets. Die omringende lig moet die maan wees want die huisligte is lankal af. Dis plaasstil. Ek wens ek kon huil, maar ek kan aan niks dink wat trane regverdig nie. Ek weet net dat daar iets met my verkeerd is. Ander mense het iets goeds en moois wat ek nie het nie. In my is daar iets leliks. Dis deel van my. Ek ís die gebrek; die gebrek is ek.  Dit was nog altyd so. In die alleenheid word 'n idee gebore: as ek belowe om van nou af niks verkeerd te doen nie, as ek alles reg kan doen, sal die oordeel my verbygaan? ...

The Road to Our House For the two of us here in the mountains, there's not much difference between "self-isolation" and what we usually do. We prefer to live with our furry friends, both tame and wild. We know the leopard tortoises by name. To come across one, or sometimes all of them, at the end of a day is like meeting a friend on the road. The black eagle pair still soars above our house. The other day we surprised a brown buzzard on a Cape spurfowl carcass. The kill wasn't fresh - he'd been feasting on it for at least a day. There's a new-ish, very wild Cape Grysbok in the reserve. Even the baboons visited the other day after a long absence. Okay, some housemates are more welcome than others... So we carry on doing our thing, keeping trips to town to the bare minimum and carrying F10 veterinary disinfectant wipes in the bakkie. Yes, people, vet shops still have "hand sanitiser". When you ...

Even the vet cried when I told her about Hannes . She'd spent so much time with him at the practice, she said. When he was first brought there as a foundling and again after the mauling incident - he became her after-hours companion. He even boarded for a weekend when he was between vaccinations and our usual kennels wouldn't take him. The veterinary staff knew him well, my little people-loving purr-machine. I had sent a message with a selection of photos to the receptionist after he died, but the news hadn't reached the vet, so it was left to me to break it to her this morning. Of course her wet eyes yanked at my own heartache and I came home with a lingering nostalgia, the longing reignited. Maybe it was too soon to get another kitten. He's not the same and I don't expect him to be the same. I deliberately chose a feline as different from Hannes as possible. Stoffel is a long-haired ginger kitten from Montagu whose owner is lea...

Wat is dit wat ek verloor het, wat ek in my arms gedra het en nou weg is? Wat in my hart was vir so 'n kort rukkie voor die leegheid teruggekom het? Ek moet die ding se naam uitvind sodat ek dit weer kan soek. Maar dis dalk nie iets wat mens kan voor streef nie. Dis dalk iets wat óf daar is óf nie.  My leegheid dra die vorm van 'n swart-en-wit katjie met lang beentjies en die vreeslikste liefde vir mense. Johannes , het Buurman hom genoem, "Djou Highness". Ou Hannessie, wat voor my uitgehardloop-spring het as ek sy naam roep kamer toe waar ons sy kossies weggesteek het vir die ander katte. Die purr-masjien wat my vyfuur soggens kon wakkerspin met sy entoesiasme vir nuwe daglig, wat moes eet die oomblik dat hy wakker word. Sy sagte katjielyf is wat my arms mis, die gat in my borskas dra sy vorm.  Ek raak afgesluit van die wêreld daarbuite. Dom. Stom. Dis nie moeilik hier in die kloof nie. Ek ignoreer eenvoudig emails, selfs die dringendes. Die gastehuisbeddens st...

dit brand soos ‘n pyl in my. Die mense sien daar niks nie van, en die Here alleen die weet wat ek ly. Die dae kom en die nagte gaan; die skadu’s word lank en weer kort; die drywerstem van my werk weerklink, en ek gaan op my kruisweg vort. https://gedigteboom.co.za/totius/o-die-pyn-gedagte/     I know at least seven women who have lost a child.    I, myself, managed to lose someone else's child.    "How do you do that?" I hear you ask.    You take in a six-year old when his mother's life falls apart and you keep him until he reaches high school, after which the arrangement becomes permanent and one day you realise you've become a single step-parent to a teenager. When you divorce his father many years later, you also lose the only "child" you'd ever known.    That is how you lose someone else's child.   It was not until I found Buurman that the possibility of a human baby crossed my mind. The Bulldog ...

Buurman and I spent Friday night on the eleventh floor of an apartment in the inner city. The full moon hovering over the Old Post Office Building was just as beautiful as in the bush. We were able to afford this luxury courtesy of a $100-bonus I got from Airbnb just for doing my job. Normally we travel much more modestly and never in the price class of my own guest accommodation. View On Airbnb Chic Downtown Designer Apartment We went to Cape Town for Buurman's three-monthly check-up at the oncology centre and decided to throw in a show at the Artscape so we wouldn't lose our kulcha completely. What passes for culture in the countryside consists largely of Afrikaans singers I do not know and do not wish to listen to. Neither of us thought much about the radiology results before the appointment. With one word - "clear" - the oncologist determined the tone of our next three months. Relief and gratitude only really set in over rosemary-and-seasalt flatbread at...

Gister is ons terug onkologiesentrum toe. Dis nie meer so vreemd daar nie. Nog voordat hy kan aanmeld, sê die assistent agter die toonbank meneer Jordaan kan maar gaan sit. Ek het al 'n sin van eienaarskap oor die ligpers tweesitplekbank in die ruim ontvangslokaal en sit reeds. Daar's huismooimaaktydskrifte op die koffietafel en ek gryp 'n uitgawe wat ek in die winkel gemis het, grawe my bril uit my handsak en wys vir Buurman goed wat vir my mooi is. Daar's selfs klein pakkies potlode en inkleurboeke vir grootmense, maar ek lus nie om iemand anders se lelik ingekleurde prentjie klaar te maak nie.  Ons moet weer wag. Nie meer so bang soos die vorige keer nie. Ietwat fatalisties geraak intussen. Ons sit gewapen met ons vrae vir die locum -dokter - Buurman se eintlike onkoloog is met vakansie. Dis amper soos 'n tweede opinie kry, reken ons, teen geen ektra koste.  'n Groot, vaal vrou aan die ver kant van vyftig stel haarself voor as Irene. N...

Some people say children cannot grieve, that the losses we experience as children have to be grieved when we are adults. Those same people say that all psychology is child psychology. I kind of believe that. Still it's a surprise when a feeling from my fifteenth year is finally released into my dreams now, at fifty. I suspect the dream was triggered by the audiobook I'm listening to. In the book, a mother leaves and a girl is left alone with the care of her dad. She's too young for the job, but she manages. So I found myself back in the old homestead of my uncle and aunt, with whom I went to live after my father had died at our house in Hall Street. One small-town Sunday afternoon in May he suffered his final heart attack alone in his darkened bedroom while I was out visiting a friend in the sunshine. The guilt that ensued sanctions its own chapter. For now we'll stick with the loss. In the days after his death family flocked to our house and I don't re...

Voetpadsberg Gister is ek en Buurman kerk toe. Nie een van ons was lus om te gaan nie. Kerk toe gaan is baie soos gym toe gaan: jy moet jouself oorreed om daar te kom, maar as jy eers daar is, wil jy nêrens anders wees nie. Die stap was moeilik want dis off-trail, m.a.w. ons moes vir twee ure deur die bosse ploeg om daar te kom. Vier jaar het verbygegaan sedert ons die roete aan die oostekant van die kloof laas geloop het en hy't amper onherkenbaar toegegroei in daardie tyd. Ons kloof het seker twintig jaar laas gebrand en die biomassa is so dig dis kol-kol ondeurdringbaar. Boonop groei die dodder oor alles. Dodder laat my gril. Doornkloof se enigste botaniese "claim to fame" is die Brunsvigia josephinae of reusekandelaar wat veel verder in die kloof op groei. Hulle is verwant aan die gewone Brunsvigia orientalis of seeroogblom wat algemeen voorkom en net so mooi is, maar kleiner. Josephinae is vernoem na Napoleon se eerste vrou, die heerseres Josephine, ...

My bene bewe toe ek by die onkologiesentrum se trappe af stap. Nie net my bene nie, besef ek. My hele lyf; diep binne-in. My ledemate voel lam. Asof al my krag by my voete uitvloei. Ek hou aan die handreling vas. Hoe gaan ek regop bly? Dis soos om Skeleton Gorge uit te klim, tot by Castle Rock te loop en by Nursery Ravine weer af. As mens onder kom is jou bene soos jellie en jy wonder of jy dit gaan maak tot by jou kar wat by Kirstenbosch geparkeer staan. Ons loop uit in die sagte Kaapse reën en Buurman se bakkie in die onderdakparkeergarage voel vreeslik ver. Ek vat sy hand toe ons buitekant kom. Ons sê niks. Die laaste keer toe ek goeie nuus verwag het, regtig onvoorwaardelik verwag het, was toe ek en Ouma in die wagkamer sit by die Universitas-hospitaal in Bloemfontein en die twee dokters kom staan in die deur, jongerig, en hulle vra of ons die familie van mevrou Jooste is. Ek het sonder om te bevraagteken gedink hulle volgende woorde gaan wees: "Ons kom sê net sy is beter...