audible
we wanted to be with him when he was taken from us
deep in the night alone and as always without
disrupting anything light as a prayer whole and humble
as a feather but while he perhaps delicately etched arrives
between ancestors and stardust we hesitate awk-
ward in our concern as ever shy before his
gentleness his palms on our shoulders through the years
he restored us calmly with stories
that he ploughed open family trees that he kept
in order he was our hold-onto man our maker of
peace our go-between our thin-skinned antelope heart
the unnoticed clasp of our family belt
he’s gone and how loosely we’re drifting already whatever
we wanted each sorrowful word
each forgiveness each gesture of love that we wanted
to offer is too late jesus Pa send something anything
that says you do feel it: the adamantly unstaunchable
keelhauling nature of grief
2.
after her husband was buried
great-greatgrandmother Betjie from Middenspruit
had him dug up again
and dressed in a different suit
‘suddenly I can understand it,’ my mother said
‘all I can think about is to dig
into that mound of earth and
keep going until I reach your father
until I reach where he is and
lift him up by his shoulders
the irrefutable thereness of him’
3.
3 december 1861
when on that day
he spread out
the gold coins
in payment for the farm
JH Boshof’s
little table
broke
when after that
he signed the purchase contract
laid down the pen
Paul Johannes Delport
knew:
now he was
a Baas
4.
[land] – in brackets untranslatable
they say that Greatgrandmother Helena Susanna Delport
owned [ ] all the land between Kroonstad and Renosterspruit
after her husband died she remained there with two daughters
one of them my grandmother Anna Elisabeth
they say she married a middle-aged fellow Hennie Geldenhuys
[ ] so that the land could be worked [ ]
they say she was a diabetic [ ]
and one day she slipped into a coma
her two daughters came immediately from their respective
households [ ] to prepare for the worst
[ ] they say that within a day or two the first ampoule of insulin
arrived at old Dr Dykman’s consulting room
straight away he rushed out to the farm on the Kroonstad/
Viljoenskroon road to test the new cure
and on the way [ ] [ ] he rode past
the local attorney on the dusty farm road
they say immediately after the first injection
Grandma Lena showed signs of recovery
when she was shakily drinking some water she asked where the ink
on her right middle finger had come from
‘ask your husband’ they said
her daughter, my granny, said
the next morning she went to town to cancel
the will that made over all the land to Stepgrandfather Hennie
[ ] [ ] sixteen years later she died [ ]
Grandpa Hennie had usufruct until his death
after a year with his new wife [ ] he moved to town [ ]
he said Grandma Lenie cooks soap in the yard at night they said
5.
a story
we grew up together on the farm, we two were the same
early in the morning it was still dark then I could see:
he was waiting by the trees, they were like aloe trees, he was waiting
then we would play there we shot little birds, we rode the horses
we would move move down to the stream till the old lady
with the bonnet came out and called the way Matjama was
I was the same we ate porridge from one bowl one o’clock
then Matjama ate from his plate then I ate from my plate
when he didn’t eat nicely then the old lady brought him outside
then he sat next to me then we ate together I knew Matjama
well well like I knew
