TROUBLEMAKER
for ntate Madiba, with respect

When his voice hit the audience,
breaking to pieces the only peace we knew
and were sharing among barbed houses on a hill,
it sent birds off to where startled shards go,
his voice the thing we’d sought
to shake our poetry, make sense of the world
the way a bullet never will.

A shipment of negroes
leaves the shore and is forever gone
to render music unto the world,
win an Olympic with a half a nutrition.
In a dire dance of the last dama, they move
like sirige masks among cotton fields.
Still, his voice beckons. A tap root
fills my mouth completely, floor to roof.
The first time I heard him I thought it was a mistake–
this ideal he was preparing to die for,
but it was in his voice, carried to my door
by the choice of an ordeal, joined by others
from far inland into the Maloti mountains,
where between seasons of cold and hot,
snow and sun shuffle the light.

In the chill of night when the wind is still,
the island whispers thoughts of ghosts,
in nomine Patris et Fillii et Spiritus Sancti,
in a voice like the one I took at Peka High School
for the year-end show when, dressed for war,
and having rubbed the struggle into my hair,
my father watching from the front row,
we marched on-stage, and I began with
the words our people had stated in Kliptown:
South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
© Rethabile Masilo

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The Prime Minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili, is said to have thrown his weight behind Robert Mugabe. For a while I had started whining about the lack of a position on the part of the Lesotho government. Now, here it is. I’m sorry that it doesn’t please me. Mr Mosisili “told foreign powers on Wednesday to respect the sovereignty of states in the region.” I wonder whether foreign powers here refers to non-southern African states or to all states that are not Zimbabwe.

Ten years ago the government of Mr Mosisili was threatened by a domestic upheaval, and a coup d’etat was feared by most. The beleaguered Lesotho government called for help from SADC, and the then president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, authorised sending troops into Lesotho to calm things down, especially that the government of Lesotho was deemed legitimate then.

In March 1998 parliamentary elections in Lesotho resulted in an overwhelming majority for the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy Party, which won 79 out of 80 seats. However allegations of vote fraud soon surfaced, and after a failed lawsuit by the opposition parties, widespread rioting broke out.Under President Nelson Mandela the ANC-led government in South Africa (which completely landlocks Lesotho) announced it would hold a formal inquiry to determine the allegations of corruption. Controversially, the report only alleged minor irregularities.

Mandela authorised the deployment of 700 South African troops to Lesotho on September 22, 1998 to quell the rioting and maintain order. Botswana Defence Force soldiers were also deployed. The operation was described as an “intervention to restore democracy and the rule of law.”

Widespread arson, violence, and looting occurred despite the presence of SANDF soldiers. Troops were pulled out in May 1999 after seven months of occupation. The capital city of Maseru was heavily damaged, requiring a period of several years for rebuilding.
[source…]

What is the difference between Lesotho then and Zimbabwe now? Robert Mugabe has terrorised and killed more people than the rebels in Lesotho had. Mr Mosisili’s government asked for help then, yet he now says the sovereignty of states in the region should be respected. What gives?

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مرداد
[ to اردیبهشت ]

The face of your father comes
through flung windows into the bedroom
of this sweltering August. In a bid
to keep us from needing the dead,
he floats toward the bed where the four of us
are golliwogs sprawled in heat.
I indulge in the visionmy father-in-law
holding my hand the night of his visit.
Overcome by decayed decades and hapless days,
the face of your father comes when I’m awake
as when I’m asleep. I wear it like a mask,
I penetrate a different peace, I know.
Here no one’s allowed to weep.
They all come out every night for a spell
to touch the world, he says, and leave behind
gravestone, garlands, wilting plants,
and long to be with you a while.
© Rethabile Masilo

In case your computer is Persian-script challenged, the title is “AUGUST”, or Mordad, and the poem is to “Ordibehesht”, my wife. “Ordibehesht” means April in Farsi, the month of her birth. I have written a poem or two before dedicated to ‘Masekoja, my wife’s name in Sesotho. I’m not polygamous.

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THE STONES OF MOHOKARE

We picked flint for its flatness
and curled thumb and forefinger round it,
then bent at the waist to almost touch
the yellow carpet of shoeshoe blossom
covering most of the moist turf with colouring,
and flicked from the wrist. The trick was
to send the stone flying on the water’s surface
at some angle from nought to forty-five,
like the prow of a proud ship,
and unbend only after releasing the stone,
seeing it hover like a craft on a bumpy sea, only
to stop and anchor at port on the OFS side of the river
that separates our two countries, and fattens
the land that is boundary, as south-west it flows,
to Bethulie and the ocean, where all life goes.
Sometimes we swam across it, late in summer,
when the white farmer’s trees were so heavy
with peach and appelkoos that their fronds
dusted the ground like farm hands,
the deep brick of the fruit telling us
which tree was ripe; or, pulled by a fragrance
that sometimes hit as we walked behind
from where a breeze was coming, we knew.
We broke whole branches off and used them
as rafts on the way back, starting to eat
still on the run, in the mid-river sun.
The beet-faced farmer always burst from his huis
in anger, and trained a rifle on us, as we made off
into the river with the loot. But no shot ever came.
Maybe he had no faith in apartheid. Perhaps
the theft and hover-crafts linked our worlds,
our peoples, living the destiny of the river.
© Rethabile Masilo
——————–

MY FATHER’S KILLERS

They take to the road at midnight, and turn
Toward land that by right we plough and turn.

Their dark convoy passes white-washed houses.
A brake light: the bakkies slow down, and turn.

They park at right angles to the street,
Light the yard up, it’s daddy’s day and turn.

They have come on a crisp September night
To blight us, make our season change and turn.

The moon shimmers its flashlight on a blade
While, from a height, the planets spin and turn.
© Rethabile Masilo
——————–

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“Lesotho cannot wait for the UN food summit in Rome to come up with ideas, so it has developed some of its own. Mahaha Mphou does not know much about global economics, but she does know how to grow vegetables. She and the rest of her family of 10 have become some of the most enthusiastic evangelists for a home-grown idea that has almost certainly saved them from starvation.”
[more…]

What’s a keyhole garden? Look at this video.

“According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) report, issued on 12 June 2007, an estimated 410,000 people of the country’s 1.9 million inhabitants will struggle to meet their basic food needs
due to extensive crop failure after experiencing one of the most severe droughts in the last 30 years. Environmental damage caused by over farming and soil erosion compounds the problems associated with drought.

World Vision and partners has introduced an innovative
pilot project called keyhole gardens, to explore ways of improving the health and livelihoods of people through suitable sustainable farming and water harvesting techniques.

The techniques taught are specifically designed to increase the fertility and water-holding capacities of soil. The introduction of manure, combined with knowledge in how to compost and create double-dug beds and keyhole gardens, for instance, has led to farmers experiencing up to five-fold increases in crop yields.
[more…]”

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