the coming eruption
my first encounter with it
walking fast
Maboneng to town
with a fiercely internationalist filmmaker friend
far east on Commissioner
before Troyville
a hollow complex ringing with
Fanakalo
liquid orange language
created
in the mines heated crossroads of the
country entire Southern slice and more
the aspiration of Esperanto born
and living through
needs of unintending capitalists
second encounter
in a participant observer’s book
first depiction of
women’s lives in the mines
third
Dudula [Dubula] in Alexandra
my lover sharing how the language is ridiculed rejected
child throttling truth and tumbling back of words of another friend another time
‘if you had seen how my Tswana mother was made to feel in my Pedi community’
coming
Fanakalo Esperanto
remaking earth
Salimah Valiani is a poet, researcher and activist. Her most recent poetry collection is 29 leads to love (Inanna 2021).