Where the Grass is Warm by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes
Where the Grass is Warm
by Rethabile Masilo
I walk to where the grass is warm; you have
words that move to close each gap within;
we talk about old times, and suddenly I say:
here's a face, a good place you can turn to,
it is yours and you may keep it if you will,
and I hand you myself as a young man
who adored you, before they slew you—
the time we played morabaraba on the flat
boulder above our home in Qoaling—that
house now trembles when it's approached,
like a child beaten into submission for years
who sees a face that resembles its sex
master, whose fingers know her crotch
inside out, particularly inside more than out.
A tree sings around us, but we are not afraid,
we have known for years the sickness
of night that knows no day. In the morning
I wear your armour to work and take off
the mask which hides the features of my old
self. You've stayed young through the years.
In the evening I return with bread and wine;
I say: I saw a coyote with its leg caught in a trap,
and it didn't even cry at all except to call
freedom to its rescue in the minds of men.
Then I thought: who knows how coyotes feel
about love? What kind of words or expressions
can a single man uphold? The poor animal
called and called and did not chew its own leg off.
In the morning, things come to light, night
takes its clothes of bereavement off
once moths have fed themselves to flames.
words that move to close each gap within;
we talk about old times, and suddenly I say:
here's a face, a good place you can turn to,
it is yours and you may keep it if you will,
and I hand you myself as a young man
who adored you, before they slew you—
the time we played morabaraba on the flat
boulder above our home in Qoaling—that
house now trembles when it's approached,
like a child beaten into submission for years
who sees a face that resembles its sex
master, whose fingers know her crotch
inside out, particularly inside more than out.
A tree sings around us, but we are not afraid,
we have known for years the sickness
of night that knows no day. In the morning
I wear your armour to work and take off
the mask which hides the features of my old
self. You've stayed young through the years.
In the evening I return with bread and wine;
I say: I saw a coyote with its leg caught in a trap,
and it didn't even cry at all except to call
freedom to its rescue in the minds of men.
Then I thought: who knows how coyotes feel
about love? What kind of words or expressions
can a single man uphold? The poor animal
called and called and did not chew its own leg off.
In the morning, things come to light, night
takes its clothes of bereavement off
once moths have fed themselves to flames.
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