Flowers from Tasmania
I.
Proteas grow luxuriantly, swiftly here.
Emblems of my native land
they grow to massive size.
They occupy whole tracts of farmland
become an industry.
They produce multiple blooms.
Heady with success the stems thicken.
The grey sword leaves find no adversaries
among the native ericas and heaths. Amaryllis from the Cape
also proliferate,
their belladonna flowers
perfume the rain.
But something about my transition to this soil
falters, finds no root.
I grow, but spread in wrong directions.
Something of the air
invades my lungs
I struggle with my soul
to keep it moored here,
keep its breath.
I refuse the dominance of mountain
view and valley
ignore the vast expanse of sea
that grows beyond the bounds
of endless miles of distant hills
and turn my face from being struck
by wind or rain.
II.
Writing from this island
you have to assume
the guise of a flower.
It's an invasive image,
the flower.
The wild rose
growing prolifically by the roadside
is held in check by the wire fence
its fierce thorns attention-seeking
no hazard to the passing sheep
but its lesions grow on me.
I pray to God
to hedge and bind
my blotchy roses.
There was a day in midwinter
I recklessly succumbed
to the idea of death.
Easter.
And I managed to say no,
turned back to life
to find the grey flower
and pluck it out
from its image-bed
instead.
(In collection,: Poems from Mt Moono, Johannesburg, 1989.)
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