“She was not at odds with the times–the times was at odds with her,” Shabazz says in the documentary (What happened, Ms Simone?). “I think when a person moves to their own kind of clock, spirit, flow, if we were living in an environment that allowed us to be exactly who we are, you’re always in congress with yourself.” – Qubilah Shabazz.
The heart is beautiful
Morgan’s sidewinder bellows out to roam the hunger of the night
Coltrane paints and fills the canvas of thoughts with altos and tenors
None belongs to a melody of their birth
Reality is unbearable to a mind that has long contemplated sentences in conversations
The words of the songs that lose meaning when they are sung belong to the impervious totem names that are created by fame
adoration is a fierce dream that is at odds with the courage of the stars,
You’re simply crawling in the night of the moonlight trying not to offend the freedom of your spirit
Our bones have learnt our pain and have cuddled into cages that are the boroughs of our resistance
All things that are bright have no shadows
Darkness is always weary,
even it knows that it is not the master of its own destiny
We forgot that we have to write letters to our dreams,
Not only to remind us what we have learnt, but also to prepare the prophecies that we must still fulfill
Shapes of happiness are dismantled by the diagrams of truth
You cannot fly if you don’t know where the wind rests, where it hides its fear and where it broods its famished anger and where it caresses its demons
Borrowed smiles from the memories are the payment of the joy of the heart
Happiness is a bountiful wonder,
To know the boundaries of faith and transcend them
The heart is pure and beautiful and there’s nothing that can ever taint it
That which is said and done
And that which you say and do,
can never take the light of its beauty
It doesn’t know the strangled rules of the promises of journeys and destinations
Go ahead, trust its intentions and never chastise its enthusiasm,
maybe tame its eagerness to be free from your mind.
The heart loves itself first.
Nkateko Tshabalala is a self published author of Poetic Flair, Amazon (2018).