Conversation with South African poets - 10: Isobel Dixon

This is the first post in a long while, and I'm picking up the project again with a new favorite poet: Isobel Dixon. Her poem, She Comes Swimming, can be found at Poetry International.


Below is my response:


Coming home 

a poem by Jean Watermeyer, after Isobel Dixon


Who can welcome us home, swimming sister,

on this plastic-plagued beach

beside the prison island?


Perhaps a child might find Ophelia in the stormwater scum,

might hold out a hand, say

Mommy, can we take her home?


or the bush-sleeping man at this edge of the road

or only the whispers of whichever families

loved this lee, this scent, this mountain, too


before we were cast up here

da Gama, da Gama, our mothers

giving birth in their complicity


their language, our language, taking and giving, 

shelter, blood, sky,

looking the man on the beach in the eye


To some it is given to stay,

but war, but wealth, but empire—

the beach receives our comings, 


our goings,

alone, a crew, a generation—

Hello, hello


a fish braai, a photo, a phonecall

a handful of coins, 

a smooth brown seed


the impassive stars,

our hearts, our hearts.


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