The lead singer was Lahliwe, my mother, and Tukie and Tonogo were the backup singers. They sang Utloa sefefo samoea. We were their small congregation, we clapped our hands, our grandmother hitting the side of the wardrobe because we had no drum. We were the ears to the singers. I wonder if they are still singing together behind the moon.
:::
My grandmother fell inside the bathroom and hurt her ribs. After that she abandoned speaking because when she spoke a pain like a broken bone stabbed her. That’s why she chose to use sign language. We phoned the ambulance, lucky it was near, it arrived within no time. Because it was me who was looking after her, I was sent with her in the ambulance to Livingstone Hospital. She was not attended to, she suffered in that hospital until she fell asleep. I went outside looking for bread and juice, a diabetic patient mustn’t go for long hours without taking food. I woke her with bread, I ate crumbs only with my eyes. I also suffered in that hospital, there was nothing else in those 8 hours except polishing chairs with our buttocks.
:::
It was very difficult to cross the doorframe of the room with you grandma, without bending over to pick up one of your teardrops with a tweezer. You were a washing line made of bones, strange stiff clothes that fluttered in the wind. Your wrinkled face that was showing the last days of its beauty.
:::
The world had reduced you to dust, so in the space of a minute the wind blew you away; hence the reverend said dust to dust on your burial day. With a shovel, six feet under the ground I have hidden you. Now an invisible flower, you speak with me softly saying, Manga, Manga, you are not alone, Ukhona uNyameka, Nyameke is around.
Buzani was awarded the 2019 annual Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry for his poetry book A naked bone, published by Deep South. This is 'Sign language', a poem from that collection.
:::
My grandmother fell inside the bathroom and hurt her ribs. After that she abandoned speaking because when she spoke a pain like a broken bone stabbed her. That’s why she chose to use sign language. We phoned the ambulance, lucky it was near, it arrived within no time. Because it was me who was looking after her, I was sent with her in the ambulance to Livingstone Hospital. She was not attended to, she suffered in that hospital until she fell asleep. I went outside looking for bread and juice, a diabetic patient mustn’t go for long hours without taking food. I woke her with bread, I ate crumbs only with my eyes. I also suffered in that hospital, there was nothing else in those 8 hours except polishing chairs with our buttocks.
:::
It was very difficult to cross the doorframe of the room with you grandma, without bending over to pick up one of your teardrops with a tweezer. You were a washing line made of bones, strange stiff clothes that fluttered in the wind. Your wrinkled face that was showing the last days of its beauty.
:::
The world had reduced you to dust, so in the space of a minute the wind blew you away; hence the reverend said dust to dust on your burial day. With a shovel, six feet under the ground I have hidden you. Now an invisible flower, you speak with me softly saying, Manga, Manga, you are not alone, Ukhona uNyameka, Nyameke is around.
Buzani was awarded the 2019 annual Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry for his poetry book A naked bone, published by Deep South. This is 'Sign language', a poem from that collection.
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| Mangaliso Buzani |
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