Alex Smith

Love Africa Carnival note of affection #9 comes from Dineo Maboe who is ‘an avid keeper of diaries and secret story writer since my primary school years. I crossed over into poetry as a teenager, and now have a stash, spanning a decade, of my poems. I’m also an Africanist, eternal optimist, keen genealogist, believer in dreams, lover of children and the old, and an intellectual with a creative side. I am strong, powerful and I don’t hide behind the curtains – I’m up on stage, owning my greatness.

THE TASTE OF CHICKEN

As I sit and think
About my heritage
The epiphany arrives unexpectedly on the wings of the Red Bishop
That my genealogy is not as
Cut and dry
As the Apartheid government
Would have made it seem
On paper

MoTswana
I rather wish to reiterate
Ntate Mbeki’s speech of
‘I am an African’ fame
And my heritage
Is as colourful
And intricate
As an Irma Stein piece

I imagine my ancestors
To be as rich
As the Orange River is
In tributaries
From the Williams of Scottish origin
To the Xhosas of the Eastern Cape
From boKolobe of Motokwa
To boPhiri le boNamane of the North West Province and Nigel
And beyond
I have been blessed
With
My light skin
My cheekbones
My slit eyes
And my calabash frame

I have been blessed
With great traditions
And songs
With tongues that pierce the air
With ululations
Of expression and praise

I am and will be confronted
With the story of my diverse past externally
Because my kaffir hair
Could have passed the pencil test
But would have failed
Due to the noticeable tufts of straight hair
That often form a halo over and around my head
And why I often feel sick
And go pink
After spending too much time
Under the judgment
Of the South African sun

But to know
That I am an amalgamation
Of many
And am one,
I realise
That I am privileged
To be and am part of a country
Whose tale will continue to
Write itself
And leave its footprints
On the terracotta desert sand
Of the Kalahari