[Poem read at Sekoto’s inhumation ceremony at the Neuilly-sur-Marne-93 Cemetery, near Paris. Channel 4 in London recorded the reading as they did the funeral rites in the presence of his close relatives come from afar for the nonce and based their documentary - as far as I can tell - on my lead cover article on the South African self-taught painter and musician Gérard SEKOTO, published in The Journal of Comparative Poietics, Vol. 2 (Paris), 1993. Both the article and the poem were re-published in my book on “poietics/la poïétique”, entitled: Poietics: Disquisitions on the Art of Creation. Allahabad: Cyberwit.net, 2008, 214p. There ensued a general scramble for his canvasses at the Maison des Artistes where he was lodged in his declining years, and even the sketches he gave me for publication disappeared from my studio.]
HOMAGE to an illustrious but lonely exile from AFRICA
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
March 27, 1993
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 Rhodes
...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 recalcitrant refusal of defeat
March 28,1993
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
Truly a remarkable poetic ode to a fellow artist and friend. I do not know of the man, but I certainly learned of Mandela when I happened upon a evening get together at Little Five Points in Atlanta in 1979. It was there I met my personal secretary who put my writings in publishable shape. An artist in her own right.
Reflections and Nature Watercolors is a collection of Margaret's spontaneous positive thoughts in celebrating and reflecting on life and her nature watercolors.
These song lyrics and art are tales, tides and twinkling lights - tunes telling stories of warmth and sun, city and sand, paths that lead, and the coins we can keep in the Karma Bank. Spirit's been bypassed for sorrow, dreaming of a better tomorrow .
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