It’s a grip, not touch. Bite not kiss. By an Atlantic Muize winter shore
I swim to a father’s last teaching: “befriend the cold”.
Winter is decisive wisdom through Azania’s many fire heart lessons
Farewell bringing many-shelled, whale-bellowing joys
Mountains rock our body as wind galaxies open star paths
into a trail through grass into a cafe where a new season of words
lie hidden behind an empty page on a waiting laptop.
The burning library is writing smoke secrets into our hair
Grips rechristen into embrace, bitings mushroom into soft kelp lips
Cold teaches our body to make elemental ocean fires.We have always
everything we need and more always arrives.Winter bares their sou:
We belong with them, all the earth and cosmos like we always have.
You, me, them, rock, leaf, ocean, fire, air, spore dust siblings and lovers.
All of us- August Winter’s children.
Manola Gayatri Kumarswamy is a poet, teacher and artistic researcher. They have worked in India and South Africa over the last decade. They are currently on an ocean residency in the Western Cape.