DEPARTURES
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see / You haste away so soon (Robert Herrick)

When I arrived in South Africa two months ago I knew the chunk of time ahead seemed considerable but would be exhausted in the blink of an eye. I was right. It is almost time to leave, and a few words of thanks are in order.

First and foremost, thank you to my sister for hosting me and being considerate, sweet and lovely, as is her nature. She is the perfect companion, and I have written a poem about our connection, which could apply to any siblings who have a similar bond. It is followed by short notes on the poem.

I was very happy to have experienced the spring in Pretoria. I had only ever experienced the cold here - and cold severely inhibits me. Pretoria was beautiful even during winter, but now it is fragrantly beautiful, decked out in blossoms and blooms.

I feasted on the avocados while I was here. The creamy and buttery avocados alone are sufficient reason to retain South African citizenship - seriously.

I had the run of my sister's kitchen, and cooked to my heart's content. A life without cooking is no life at all. A life WITH cooking, on the other hand, in the Kingdom of Kitchen, is the ultimate good life.

Thank you to all who were happy to see and have me, and to the Country of my Skull (as author Antjie Krog puts it) that is in my blood and sinews and DNA, even though I am ashamed of it at times, with good reason.

Here is the poem.


unter den linden
for L.

siblings can be sublings
or manipulative superlings
many non-equal binaries besides

but not us

siblings from the same rootstock
sometimes emerge divergent 
different species 

but not us

we provide mutual shelter along the way 
fertile soil ... and syllables to make
our human growth habit
more bear-able

we prefix and suffix each other
organically
unter-linden-ally


NOTES:

The idea of oneness/separation is central to the poem, introduced in the opening stanza by "sub-", "super-", "non-equal" and "binaries", and reinforced later by "divergent" and "different".

There are two well-known German titles referencing linden (lime) trees. The older one, Unter der Linden (Under the lime tree {singular}; "der", with an -r), is the title of a love poem by Walther von der Vogelweide (circa 1170- 1230). The more recent one, Unter den Linden (Under the lime trees {plural}; "den", with an -n) refers to the most famous boulevard in Berlin. In the divided Berlin it was on the east side. This connotation of former division fits in with the meaning of the poem. My sister's name being "Linde" looks very similar to "Linden", so that ties together the dedicatee, title and vegetation metaphor (see next paragraph).

Two images are used in the poem: vegetation ("rootstock", "species", "soil", "growth habit", "organic"), as well as linguistics ("syllables", "prefix", "suffix"). They are later fused by using words such as "bear-able" (hyphen intentional; plants bear fruit, and humans bear burdens) and a creation such as "unter-linden-ally", which incorporates all of the following: the idea of unity/separation ("unter"), the title ("linden"), the vegetation metaphor (Linden = lime trees), and the linguistics metaphor ("ally").