Millennial

“It’s a rare thing to find one,” you said,
pointing out the path to the hammerkop’s nest,
nestled in the far grove growing along
this quiet stream, so well replenished
after last night’s rumbling rain.

I finally reached it,
after more mindful steps than this foolish me
can follow, forever meandering between
Cloud Cult’s chorus and Chesterton’s chattering finches
until, through no movement of my own,
I found myself sitting still on a koppie,
eye-level with twigs and tangledness,
taken back into thoughts of my grandfather,
who also loved these brown birds
and would bring the little boy I still call ‘me’
to wonder at them and laugh at their strange heads
and marvel at the mess they could make,
teaming up with the sacred ibis
at a lake which lies on the edge
of all his fuzzy memory, still amazed
by the way she comes to greet now-me,
with wing and wild call,
before landing on some rocks eroded
by the passing years to look just like
her flattened head, as if it were meant
to be - this very moment -
molded by millennia.

Traces

Skeleton

Energy