Today the rain has fallen
Upon the soil of a very kind man
A small round house, alone, rests on his machamba*
Long reeds cling to the earthen walls
And the roof of thatch—
which the rays of the sun softly pass through
—forms a point reaching towards the sky.
The pot of greens sits on the fire
A steady boil lingers in its water
The rice already has expanded—
when the rains began to call again.
We make our way inside the round hut—
each carrying something,
contributing to the run
One chair there was—meticulously wiped
and offered to me
I sit
The rain falls more and I'm driven to the floor
to sit on the earthly mat—
it's where I always wanted to be.
And as the rain increased
The dry space became less and less
The old man had sheets of plastic—small pieces,
And we spread them on top of what we could
to protect the little that he possessed
There were nine of us and one old woman, who—
in her drunken state—danced.
Yes she danced. Sang—yes she sang,
outside the hut—as a vision outside our door.
As the rain fell.
The food still hot—we ate—
and the old woman danced,
and the old woman sang.
She left. Came back.
First with a large paw paw, which she offered to me.
She kept caressing her hair—brushing it back with both hands out flat —
she was trying to tell me something.
She was trying to tell me that her mother was white or her father—one of them,
"Can't you see my hair?"
She spoke in Xishangaan
She spoke in Portuguese
And then the old man told me her story
Her husband died, and from that time
she felt lost, but free
And thus began to drink—
no longer working hard on her machamba
as the past had found her.
And she danced—and the old man he watched
—he was enjoying but tried not to show.
Then suddenly he would smile, laugh a little. I would join him.
Then she left again—out into the rain
We remained huddling under the straw strands
of the roof's circular form,
and then she returned without much time
and placed a bunch of ripe bananas
on the ground outside the door
For me—she said
I joined her outside
Obrigada! Obrigada! Senhora
She danced—she was happy
As I
I returned to the shelter of the old man's home,
and shared the ripe bananas.
The rain stopped—we stepped outside.
The freshness filled the spaces, and the earth lay rich
—as the man.
Yes the rain has fallen
And we know peace has come.
* machamba meaning "farm" in Xishangaan
Opmerkingen