Inclines (ii)
— for Shamim Meer
you call it where sky kisses earth
I call it land of the sky
is it the sky bending
or earth reaching
growing up by the Rockies
I only learned in Magalies
the older the mountains the smaller
that the world’s oldest
are the Makhonjwa
at Barberton Greenstone Genesis of Life
a kiss the majority will not know
and a minority of the minority will reach for
Salimah Valiani is the author of 29 leads to love (Inanna Publications 2021), the 2022 winner of the International Book Award for Contemporary Poetry.