Home.

Plaxico, Lonnie.

Ivachina, Anna, 2018.

“Shiri Yakanaka” (Traditional Shona folklore song for children)

Hona Shiri

The warmth of my mother’s womb never left my bones. Instead, I find it in the rising sun. I feel the rhythm of her heartbeat in the sounds of my native tongue, and suckle on the nourishing sensations of my relative’s smiles. As an infant, these things are vital. I am weak, and incapable. The extent of my knowledge is the start of the world’s. And so to be kept warm - to be loved unconditionally, unhurriedly and unashamedly, is to survive. 

As an infant, I am also the blue sky; plain and ready to be painted by the passage of time. I am infinite opportunities waiting to happen. Eggs itching to hatch. Something happens to my people when they see this blank canvas of mine. They see the nesting stars in my eyes and are compelled to coax them to life. They wish to hold this light. Nurture it. My people go “say this”,  “do that”,”walk this way”. 

My people take me into their arms and say “Yes. This is how we do things because you are of us. You will grow to fill the space we’ve carved for you.” This carving; this bringing into the world of light is the task of a village. Mothers, fathers, aunties, uncles, sekurus, ambuyas and vadzimu alike. They are a gathering of collective harmony, gently rocking me into a new world.

As my ears grow into themselves, they begin to tell me stories of our pain. Our agony. The blood woven into the branches of our savannahs. They point to the sky and say “Hona shiri”. Behold the birds. These birds carry our loved one’s souls to the place beyond earth, and as they fly, their tears fall through the blue sky. They sink into the earth, bury themselves deep and from it, the flame lily is born. 

Our national flower.

I soak in all these stories. I drink them till my belly is full with history and heritage. 

I don’t know then, as I bask in the warmth of my culture, that fractures are starting to form. That there are rips in the seams of my freshly woven garments. That I didn’t soak up quite enough. I was too busy painting the sky to notice the edges of the canvas left bare - the blank spaces where questions had gone unanswered. I didn’t know then, that when there are gaps between known and unknown, humanity fills it up for you, letting a new agony; the agony of living, creep into your bones and flicker your flame. A child need not worry of these things - a child is only concerned with warmth. But limbs grow longer, bones become thicker and the tenderness of a newborn hardens into the caution of an adolescent. 

A mind which knows not everything is right in the home of their body.

Ohlamour Studios.

Tamy Moyo. “Kwandinobva.” 2019.

Thoughts & Musings.

Tse. Ore, 2018.

It Does Not Snow

It does not snow in my country. We learn this in our early years of school, but we know it well before the words “environmental science” enter our brains. We are a nation of the sun. We know warmth like we know our own names. It does not snow in our country and yet, we walk amongst snowmen. We see them in our grocery stores, and our public libraries. We eat alongside them in our restaurants. 

In primary school, my piano teacher was a snowman. She had frost-white skin and silver hair. She wore heavy wool cardigans and spoke as if icicles lined her throat. Every morning, sun peeking from behind the stiff jacaranda trees, I walked towards the end of the school courtyard where the music rooms sat. As I walked, ice trailed my feet and the air misted with silver smoke. I’d push open the doors, walk to the centre of the room and sit, back straight, eyes trained on the black and white keys before me. 

“Remember what I taught you?” the snowman would say. “ Remember the right way?”

As an adolescent, right and wrong are not so clear, especially in a land where snowflakes dance with flame lilies. You see, in social studies, we learn of power - a thing named colonisation. We learn how long ago, but not so long that we forget, a snowman travelled far and wide to the land of flame lilies, and with one powerful gust of his lungs, swept away all the warmth. 

We learn  how warmth seeped out of the bodies of our freedom fighters. We learn how warmth was whipped out of us. We learn how, even in the darkness of a sun-less era, we stored what warmth we had left deep inside our bellies. We swallowed as much of it as we could, so that our children might know what freedom feels like. And soon enough, this warmth, this fire in our bellies pushed us forward. We found warmth again in the smoke of our rifles. We found warmth again in the echo of our war cries. We found warmth again in the birth of a new nation. 

Dzimbabwe. House of stone.

Our nation became our own blank canvas, and we painted it as well as we could. We fashioned laws, fixed constitutions and made for ourselves a thing we could call our own. But just like the rips in my seams, so too did my country have frayed edges. Gaps in knowledge where snowflakes steadily creeped in. It’s hard to let go of that icy grip when snowmen still live and laugh among us. It’s hard to carry the agony of living, when so many have died in your name. It’s hard to bask in the glory of what once was when what is, is simply pain. The tears of my generation do not fall through the sky and birth life. They form pools of resignation. Conclusions that push us out of the space that was carved for us and into colder, crueler plains.

Gamiochipi, Andres. Tapping the Cosmic Tambourine, 2013.

Byen, Koed. My Kemetic Dreams.

Masike, Hope.“Ndinewe”. Ndinewe, 2016.

Katlego, Anaya. Scorci d’Africa. 

Stephen Ng. Father’s Hand, 2013.

Tamy Moyo. “Ndibereke.” The 18th Rollercoaster, 2016.

Foreign Lands

Now I am in foreign lands. Warmth runs low here, and instead, snow forms mountains upon which houses of metal and wood are built. Water flows far and wide, connecting one piece of land to the next, and the only flames to be found come in the month of autumn, when earth blow’s fire across its tree tops. Here, I’ve had to swallow the warmth from my home and carry it in my belly.Sometimes I feel it creep up into my throat and warm the underside of my tongue as I speak of memories of home. Other times, I cannot feel it at all. It is in those moments when I am most lonely; when I am most scattered and vulnerable. 

You see, as a young adult, I have left my home for foreign lands. I left the embrace of the savannah for the kiss of colder climates. I have set aside the stories of my ancestors to ingest the history of another. And whilst most nights, I am certain this was the right decision, some days, when darkness sweeps over the continent and the cold makes my bones stiff, I wonder if this is what must become of my life. I wonder how I am meant to carve out a new space for myself, in a place where so few know the rhythm of my natural tongue. I wonder how I can merge these two worlds into one. I wonder who will teach me how to do and say and who will stop to nurture the dimming light of my stars. 

I struggle to find the rhythm of this new heartbeat, and yet, I am born again in this new land. I yearn for a warmth so deep, it blossoms across my body. I cry, but my tears cannot pierce the ice cold earth. Instead, I must dig my toes into the hard dirt and force my back straight against the unforgiving wind.When I close my eyes, and picture myself, it must be an amalgamation of who I was, am and will be. It must be all shades of warmth, all flavours of a flame. It is a fresh kind of agony, but a necessary one. It is growing longer, thicker limbs. Wider, softer hearts. It is turning your soul to the sky and searching for the birds. 

Hona shiri. Behold the birds.Behold yourself. Behold your home. 

The one once born and the one remade.