6.30.’ LOve you’ our eyes connect. I leave to give him time with his parents and girlfriend

7am. Huddled on couch outside surgery

8am. The psychologist/social worker arrives to talk to us. “they’ve started opening him up”

9am. She’s back. “they are still busy opening his sternum and chest. It’s the toughest part of the operation because he has a lot of scar tissue.”

10am.  I go get some tea for my brother, his wife, mathew’s girlfriend and his friend.

10.30 A family friend who hasn’t left our side comes to visit and we have a chat. The distraction helps.

11.15. Man with a red bag over his shoulder. human parts in white written up.

11.45 two men with red and white cases Human blood emblazoned on it. He’s losing a lot of blood, we hear.

11.50 “They are clamping the hearts”

11.52 WHat does that mean. Is the body of the donor next to matthew? No the heart has been brought in, she says. I think of the donor’s family. In that moment i send so much strength to them. i think of the doctors around my nephew as the transplant is happening. i think of the transplant co-ordinators. ANd i look next to me, and there is my brother, and i see him as a young boy and now decades later outside this surgery room praying for his son. nothing prepared us for this when we were growing up.

12.11 she comes back. “I have some great news, the heart has had its first beat on its own, unassisted…Matt’s new heart is beating all on its own in his chest..

we look at each other, tears well up. the moment lingers, stretched out, all of us suspended in these sweet words.

Then the moment’s gone and We all start sms’ing our family, our parents, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters, so far from us, in another city, to tell them the news. and the sms’s start coming back

hallelujah

YAY

thank God

Yes yes yes

He is a lion

Oh thank you thank you, God is great

YES!

and finally we start exhaling. and my brother says let’s prAy. and we hold each others hands, the five of us, my brother, my dearest sister-in-law, matt’s girlfriend and his friend, and me, and we pray in our own different ways, connected together by our humanness, and pain, by the genetic code that has bonded us forever but mostly by our love

for

matthew

thank you for ALL your support over the long journey to this point. please keep him in your prayers, in light and in love as he walks further on the road that has been paved out for him.

my deepest gratutude to the donor’s family, who in their darkest hour, followed the donor’s wishes and donated their loved one’s organs for life-saving use. the donor has managed to help seven people, including my nephew have positive life altering experience. one cannot even begin to explain what i feel right in this moment.

much love from cape town, i will write much more as these have been momentous days and nights, both scary and blessed, and times of great miracles and unbelievable messages.

please keep math in positive thoughts

i hope you too are all well

xx

if truth be told, I sometimes write a paragraph

and then chop it up into

three word lines

and somtime just a

word

it gives me so much joy

to be minimilistic on

a line,

at times i’ve even just used a fullstop

to depict a very real emotion.

i am not sure this is poetry at all

this jagged, rough edginess

on a desolate line-terrain

but oh how it makes me smile

to see the visual art of words spread out

one

sweet

word

at

a

time

.

it will not come

this scream

contorted in my throat

lost

unable to find its way

out

inside the rage

a feeling of impotence

i can do nothing

i scream out

blood curdling

inside i hear it

so loudly

but nothing ventures forth

here under the fluorescent light

and the beep beep beep

of the icu machine…

i hold your hand and smile at you

flashes of memory

slam my forehead

and hit my heart

visions of you

aged born, 6, 8, 12, 16,

now 21

you cannot die

do you hear me

you cannot die

but the words strangle my throat

like three hands they  squeeze so hard

leaving a space too small to allow them

to pop out

so i smile serenely again

as you lie hooked up

to  monitors

the vein on your now-battered right hand

allowing a drip with liquid to reach your

dehydrated scarred body

i hold your hand

and smile

evrything’s going to be okay

my eyes say

but inside like razor blades cutting my oesophogus

i see the monitor

and it says something else

you cannot die

you cannot die

you cannot die

i see you look at me

eyes wide

and the only words that come out

are ones you’ve heard before

i love you

i’m not going anywhere

we’re going to get through this

and i see your eyes get softer

and i hold your hand tighter

we’re going to get through this…….

* For Matthew my nephew. Please keep him in your prayers as he waits for a life-saving heart transplant

yes completely loathe it

when my muse

my very own muse

whom i adore

with all of my heart

evades me…

i mean

i am a wordwarrior

for heaven’s sake

how dare she

leave me

like

a pauper

short of words

fumbling for

just one letter

on the keyboard

to break this

dry white season

on the endless screen

of nothingness.

worse than any lover

she seduces me

yes, quite like no other

and then

she just ups and offs

just when i feel i am falling

heedlessly

helplessly

in love with her

vamoos!

gone

vanished

nowhere to be found..

leaving me feeling used

betrayed

second grade

how could she go!?

And you, pray tell me,

yes you, please,

we’ll keep it just between us,

is she perhaps

woo-ing you

or you

or you?

where could she be?

just a few days ago

we were having

such a good time

making love

on the page

in the hot afternoon sun,

then later,

by the rays of the moonlight

word after word

chapter after chapter

only to wake up early

one morning

and find myself

all alone

completely

solo

and my screen,

my poor beautiful screen,

like my heart,

ripped open

to reveal

a blank,

snowy

emptiness.

I’ve sat and tried to write

i really have

Even just one sentence

Without her

In the hope that

if I wrote it

And then left

She’d be so enraged

she’d come to find me

And drag me back to the page

like she used to

when we were still lovers

But no,

Not this time,

I thought she’d be livid

If i left

And didn’t even once

command her by name…

If i played that she

never existed

i was sure

she wouldn’t handle my

withdrawal from

her ‘entraptuous’ ways…

but still

she has made no contact…

I fear I will go mad without her

That the white screen

Will become my prison..

Please I beg you

please

if she is perchance visiting you

or you

or you…

bring her close to you

hold her tight

and then

whisper in her ear

so no one else

but she can hear

these few words:

“Go back to your wordsmith

she misses you

so!”

grunting loudly

in echoes on white walls.

a suited woman,  closeby,

with glasses,

hiding any hope of escape

in her pockets,

and all along

I want to shout out,

‘I’m not mad, I’m not mad,’

but the words won’t find creation in sound,

they’re stuck in my mind, caged by drugs

prescribed by them,

forced down by them.

Row upon row of monsters,

in white suits,

they’re coming to get me,

and shut me down,

and they can’t hear me shouting

‘I’m not mad, I’m not mad,’

only silence escapes my mouth as

a burning tear

sears my muted face.

‘i’m not mad’

But they don’t hear me

.

.

.

my beautiful friend, brenda, taken on her 40th birthday by her beautiful friend jeff ayliffe

When we close ourselves to the world,

nothing can grow,

it is dark,

the sun is shut out,

no water can enter to

tend to our roots

and our shoots,

but when we turn to

face the world,

fully opened,

even though

we may feel vulnerable,

it is truly only in this state

of courage that

we have the chance to know

what we are fully capable of and

who we truly can be.

That above is another blog I have started for the writing wordshops I run and is a far more public space than this my soulful sacred space.

If you have a moment I would love you to visit it and would really appreciate any comments or feedback on some of the posts.

It’s just another side of what I do.

Another part of my soul path and I’d love to have you there with me, you have, and still do, mean so much to me here.

I didn’t mean

to miss

your last

ten calls,

please excuse my

tardy response

but you see

a big black

sadness

has befallen me

and i just can’t seem to

pick up the phone.

oh what do you mean

lance is not there?

He died?

Oh God no!

when?

seven phone calls ago!

please forgive mrs de goveia

i really was too caught

up

in my darkness to

listen to the messages.

lance

oh well

yes

he was always

the lucky

one…

i was there

today

a mossy green field,

i spied  it

in my mind’s eye

from beyond a grassy green gate

and on the field

all the people

i had ever loved

it started with the dead ones first

and then grew and grew to

family and friends from past and present

you were there too.

inside of me lives this field

and i can go there

anytime i need to,

why don’t you come

and be there with me too…