Treatment

I watched the sun’s rainbow halo
held by running clouds and reflected
in a pool of water defying drought,
while some tilapia tickled my frustrated skin,
come all this way to be their promised feast
before a crab crawled over my arm
and asked his question of me,
sat dead still in this ancient spa
trying not to let my giggling disturb
the little fish gathered to clean me up.

How is it, I’m still in wonder,
that we found this exact string of words
and the letters which make them,
folded together in ways which can’t even pretend
to mimic the rocks you drew them from
and the stream this pass protects
from the fractal chaos of the Karoo,
which I keep coming back to, sensing here
something old and ordered in a way
we have only just begun to walk again,
amazed that Meiringspoort has been
here all this time, longing to let me learn
the simple love of fish living off what I let go,
everyday, only now awake
to how they will not just clean your feet,
but tickle them too (if you let them)
laughing at the way dead skin brings new life
to this little bit of water, waving at the sun.

Traces

Roadtrips

Through time