Janice’s Poem by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes

"Janice’s poem"

by Rethabile Masilo

Poet and Publisher Phil Rice reads Masilo's "Janice’s poem" — a journey of dawn, dust, and the echo of light.

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Janice’s poem When you get there, the horses of dawn before you, the furious wheels of drawn carts, each distance hard-won with sweated salt, the road flat between miles; tense; only hoof and sound of wheel loud above the air, proof that this is not just a bad dream, who can say what's best to do for our calm? You sit like sculpted ivory among jaded colours, something in the face you wear, hung like a mask on walls of inner rooms, something in the sound whose echo names you, the morning of which rose out of the gold of you, flaring nostrils at the world. How can we say who is to blame? Halfway into destiny, the sun lost all hope, and shone into itself above the great Smokies. A slow descent home. The accurate death of the first words ever spoken: let there be light! What do we know about the meanings of things that work against that kind of light?

"Janice’s poem" opens with the mechanism of dawn — horses, carts, salt, and dust — and slowly builds into presence, distance, and the strange permanence of a face that is both mask and mirror. Then we move from a flat, tense road to the "great Smokies," where the sun loses hope and shines into itself. It ends with a question that resonates

That's what someone else other than the poet might have said. There is indeed a quiet violence in there. Only… I was responding to the emotion brought on by the passing of a friend's spouse. I don't exactly know how the poem came about. I was working on notes for a poem about woman, strong and smart and tender, when a light bulb lit above my head, and I tweaked those notes. And ‘Janice’s Poem’ took form.

Phil, who's reading, and I, went to the same, great uni: Maryville College in Blount County, Tennessee, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. We never actually hung out... but we got to know each other better through common friends and poetry years after our College days. We've since worked together on Canopic Jar, and Canopic Publishing, which he founded and runs, has put out two of my books, Letter to Country and Mbera.

— Rethabile

Phil Rice (Canopic Publishing) reading "Janice’s poem"

In this video, Rice reads Masilo's poem "Janice’s poem." His voice is measured and clear, carrying the weight of each image: the horses of dawn, the furious wheels, the sculpted ivory face, and the final question about light and meaning.

Video source: YouTube. Duration approximately 2 minutes.

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