ZULU, THE LANCE AND THE LANGUAGE
First, the language refused to enter my ear and be understood.
Instead I chased words around,
words that hovered beyond grasp
and flew like swallows beyond Inanda hills,
beyond Ixopo mountains
and down to the Umgeni rivers.
Zulu held a knobkerrie and threatened to knock
my head every time I pronounced a word wrong,
Some phrases came crushing down like violent waves
at Isipingo beach or stretched my tongue like a tent
and nailed it upon my teeth.
I remember some time ago, I tried addressing a meeting
of the Indunas at Umthimkhulu in isiZulu – Oh dear me;
It wasn’t my intention to kill those warriors with laughter
“ Uthini Lo muntu?” they asked.
It felt as if my mouth was a jungle –
A dense forest of entwined foliage,
Where it was hard to come to comprehension.
It felt as if my tongue grew a tangle of grass,
The sharp blades piercing my palate.
They didn’t know it was hard speaking Zulu,
It had to do with the clenching of jaws
and the wielding of shields and spears.
WHAT’S THIS PLACE AGAIN?
A herd of cattle still graze in the field
On the plot of land where the authorities
Had proposed to build a shopping mall
Its proposed name on the rust-stained board
Begins to fade and peel away
The windmill that used to supply the villagers
With water
Had since went dry and leans heavily against
An old crumbling concrete slab
And so are hopes and dreams of a community
Hanging in spider-webs
I sit beneath the Marula tree and watch
The black bull in the eye where it graze
The grass is dry – the land parched
The name of the village on the signpost
Had faded away too, a passer-by stops to ask:
“What’s this place again?”
Antreka Tladi was born in Jane Furse, Limpopo, Republic of South Africa. He grew up in Phokwane, Brooklyn where he received his primary and secondary education and currently lives. His poems have appeared in local and international anthologies and journals including the Avbob Poetry Project, Calabash Literary Journal, New Coin and the Otherwise Engaged Literature and Art Journal among others. His debut collection of poetry titled Mother’s Kitchen and Other Places was published in 2023.
Image: Mpele Thokozane, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
