THE SUGARCANE FIELD
South of Isandlwana, Rourke’s Drift, Spion Kop
in KwaZulu-Natal, near Bergville
in the Tugela Valley, one March,
we saw the signs of the beginning
of autumn in the southern hemisphere:
tiny, white and infrequent clouds appearing
over the Drakensberg. Beside the pathway
to the sangoma’s kraal – the house
of a local woman, a handsome woman
in her thirties, calm, gentle, commanding,
a healer, a diviner – a small field
of sugarcane rustled, whispered.
