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Gérard SEKOTO: In Memoriam (1913-1993)
I
Would that anger subside
anger fed on pride
pride
of I against You
who is right: I not YOU
meum et tuum
Some words hastily released on the verge of angry pride
Tear from us a part of our flesh
a part of our cells
Leaving us lesser men forever
pitted against the I in You
forever
wanting to be right
I above You
You may not - yes, now I know
you didn't - have meant it
Your words were stony
arrows sunk in the mud of my hurt
splitting
even before they found the unintended target
There may yet have lingered then a little bit of the malin in you
That ultimate grace-saver in your embattled loneliness
I
didn't stop to think
I had to show you I was hurt
I didn't realise your hurt was legendary
already formed and contorted in the aeons of darkness
each in our indelible separateness
Your age your despair your self-abandonment
in
the gorge of medicines
in
the crises that felled you
careering
through terrifying electric storms
leaving you year
after year worsted
wiping
duster-strokes of your memory clean
I didn't stop to think
T.Wignesan
II
Your demise is the passing of an age
is the passing of a people's pain
unrequited
In your veins you take with you a hundred years
of
hurts and slings
of
dismemberment and mindlessness
of
lost chances anguish and despair
though
driven
into your lonesome corner
upright against the inroads of a
or the
pitted power of Buthelesis
finding in the milling Seine
in the plucky rhythms of a black-and-white keyboard
in
the hidden skeins of your eyes
a
pulse
beating with the heart of downtrodden
generations
the
infinitely pulsing look of defiance
that
ultimate refusal of defeat
T.Wignesan
III
Long are the years you have lain your easel down
Longer still the sun at Botshebelo burnishing your skin
In the soft autumnal retreat of your heart
You could still hear children playing in the mission station
You saw with what glee they jigged in Sophiatown
And bled for your brothers enchained in District Six
Away in the quiet slumber of a land you loved
You wrought the blazing colours of a secret rage
of
man's will thriving in his limbs
of
an enduring passion for hope
in the dance of stoic joyousness
in the embrace of a Mandela
Not a shaft of light escaped your
hunt for
traces
of your childhood
nor
were lost the spare airs that filtered through
shanty-towns
Your world was a world of people
simple people
going about their
chores with premeditated caution
oppressed people
endowed by need
with the guile for survival
People for whom you lived
People who live on in your veins
uninterred in your carved
canvasses
Fresnes,
© T.Wignesan 1993
[from
the collection: back to background material, 1993]