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Showing posts from May, 2012

‘There are Countries Unfelt by your Feet.’

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Sucking on the Sun Perhaps it’s the change of season that brings a sense of restlessness with it. The garden is thick with fallen leaves. The sky is held on the blue fingers of empty branches. The late roses are in bloom – not because I have tended them – but because they have life and they will be what they are despite my neglect. I can see the deep orange of a Johannesburg Gold rose through my window. It looks as if it has sucked on the sun. It will drop its petals when it needs to and not before. My father, 91, holds onto the last fragments of his blooming. He will turn away when he has to. I was struck by the wisdom of one of my Grade 12s today when she said: “Everything turns to nothing.’ She’s right. But there must always be the possibility of something more between the appearance of the first tight bud and the fall of the last petal. Here I am, on the possibility path. I’m certainly not in my first bloom, but I’m not ready to shed the last petals yet. I fee