From the fury of a dying sun

I remember her fondly
Her memory clinging to me
The sweetness of a lover never to be possessed

Her heart
Battle-worn and weary
Whispered to me of beautiful winged creatures carrying dreams

She remains to me a wonder
An ancient fallen star draped in porcelain skin
From Mount Olympus,
Stolen from the heart of Zeus himself

She never yielded to this world willingly
To be tamed
Re-moulded
Though they surely tried
Monsters moving in the dark
With cloth-covered faces over hollowed-out eyes

She was forged in the heavens
Born from the fury of a dying sun

A goddess
Never meant for this world.

Published in Doek Literary Magazine, 2021 and shortlisted for the Bank Windhoek Doek Literary Awards

This poem remains a difficult one to talk about.

Usually, my poems are about me looking back, looking at how I’ve healed and I’m able to connect to the part of myself still in that trauma in order to write about it (like looking back whilst moving forwards). But this poem was different.

In a way, I’ve been writing it for a long time, and in some ways, I don't know Her (the goddess) at all. There are lines I’ve taken from poems I wrote years ago, words that I have been caressing and nurturing through the ages and they finally found a home within this poem. Then there are parts that just came to me when I sat down and decided to write this story, something I needed the world to read.

The goddess in the poem is of course me. But perhaps a part of myself I haven’t yet healed enough to know?

Of course, it’s an autobiographical piece, as most of my poems are but it really is a poem for all women, (“she never yielded to this world willingly”). And it speaks of the struggles we face every day to stay true to who we are in a world that constantly tries to make us something different, something shameful. It speaks of our strength to face oppressors (“monsters moving in the dark..)

A visual representation of this poem would be my first ever acrylic painting on canvas. It is me if ever I were a painting.

I wanted to show how something can be beautiful even in its darkness, and perhaps because of it.

Flowers of the underworld. Acrylic painting on canvas

It’s been transformed many times and there is a knowing of my own soul, a likeness when I look at this painting. It’s like coming home, like smelling Ma’s cookies.

The transformation of the painting represents my own transformation.

Perhaps this is also the story I’ve started to tell with this poem “From the fury of a dying sun”. A story of transformation, but the poem is telling a very small part of that goddess’ story.

Though I hope she will reveal herself to me again, perhaps a little more this time, dare to bare a little too much skin, too much of her heart.. like I try to do with mine.