ROBERT BEROLD

At the wavelength of earth

The lights go out in the cities
one by one as the scores are settled.
The vests of sunbirds glint
between dark trees.
The venom of adders concentrates
over thousands, millions of years

My soul was eaten first by dogs, with red tongues 
and black lips. Then came distorted birds
with mandibles and talons. Then human being-like 
creatures, their energies thickened by desire. 
And then the rivers washed me clean and floated me
down cobble beds and riffle zones.

I would like to go back down into the rocks
and become the forest. I would like to move 
positively on the airwaves, in the lightbulbs 
and aerial connections. I would like some signal
that our minds are only partially our own,
that we come from a more luminous continuum. 

I would like Jesus to come down and demonstrate,
on live tv, that kindness is a more efficient way to live,
then put a kink in every gun to render it inoperable,
and then perform the real miracle: prune the human
appetite so nobody wants more than they need
for food and work and pleasure and community.

The mind after death is nine times sharper
says the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but we live here 
where memory has a destination, where thousands 
of things scurry around, pass messages, eat 
each other, in steady cycles of decay and beauty.		
This is our place, the economics we return to.

The world comes out of the ground at the wavelength of earth,
it shocks the human heartbeat into starting.
The world comes out at the scale of the soil
a pure sound the frequency of bacteria.
It spreads itself over the sky
with the brilliant yellow of disaster.

equals

I went into a house, a woman washed me.
In the semi-dark she called up spirits
drove off what was tormenting me.
I set out with my lame legs
squelched over the red mud roads
          lay down in a farmer’s field

It’s langa massacre sharpeville day
blood is spilling down the years
add the warm river with fish and crabs
add the clear light of the clouds
subtract the hard rain on the roof
	equals what we can't understand.

I work here planting seedlings in the ground
I like the watering, it meditates me.
add the woman whose face I never saw
add the untold darkness from before
subtract the words which run like sand
	equals what we can't understand.

the decision

The room was newly painted 
and the tables clean.
The mayor was relaxed and smiling.
The councillors had thick files 
tied with rubber bands.

The councillors asked, Was it viable? 
How was it long term sustainable?
The man was asked to respond.
He looked down. Inside himself
he shouted “Who are you to decide?”

timbila poets workshops

in the dark
between fever trees
and warthogs
poets
unemployed unbroken
fill plates
high with rice
meat and gravy
piled up to the stars
bereft and laughing

thicket

grey leavesand a blue-white sky
stone stareof the hornbill's eye

veldgrass spores andtiny seeds
circulatethe faithful breeze

a cold spring runsbetween the stones
small frogs clickthe undertones

swing sleep intoanother night
dream of a daynot yet in sight

catch the ratthat gnaws my bread
talk to the poetsin my head

fat moonthe nightjars sing
snakes in the undergrowthwait for spring