Table Mountain Capetown

Your uphill path isn’t haunted - even

baseball caps on hikers comfort you

until an unusualness

when something warm and bony

gets on my back, reaches and squeezes

my frightened wrist until

I let go,

alarmed, of my chocolate

bar and the skeleton creature whoops and

springs baboon

to the fallen sweet and grinningly turns,

devours in dust,

chirruping

and there’s horror

isn’t there?

when you panic

suddenly

gotten onto

from behind

by a grinning

gripping

carcass

silently

from behind

now isn’t there?

Darwin

You prefer sameness?

I got news, humanity,

you got difference.

You and me

Darkness lifts although it’s winter

and we lob sticks into the river.

They’re drifting free encased in bark

and, as we walk, the river quickens.

Off they rush under branches, shoots,

until they slow in pools.

We walk away, extending feet,

bending knees, as these two float

together, trusting Tao, and God and Power,

Lady Luck.

When my son sings

he’s a drunk, symmetrically wailing,

an Am-Dram soloist missing a note,

he’s lashing it, belting it out for the Tempest

in Prospero’s coat.

Seldom polite but full of himself;

upstaging, rampaging, a gravity pull

and his mouth is more open that any old sorcerer

or Titanic’s hull.

But open your eyes, look out at a dawning;

into soft-belly forces, even a taste

of whale-song, tree-root, hyena laughing,

a heart in a race …

… and embrace.

Bath time

Rattling in his bath, I hear my son chortle.

Squeals and giggles rarely

abound some days … (hear how my mind hurtles

to scarcity, stops me squarely)

but all sounds diminish and even his warm bath

is like a star, a splash,

exuberance, chuckle: he’s certainly having a laugh

before a full stop - then a dash.