On reading Vonani Bila�s longer poems, a poem by Rethabile Masilo -baylist
My father was born the same year as Vonani�s, and died a few years after his: old age? Diabetes? The weight of a heart swollen from atrocities. Their blackness is the skin of an encyclop�dia to the continent. They speak about us when the sky throws boulders in our path, and we duck and seek a means of cracking those impenitent stones. Our mothers live there with them, even as they remain here breastfeeding the unfortunate of the world, the luckless who populate the streets of history. How to be men is how to love. The day I read Vonani�s book of longer poems under my breath as I staggered home was a day of miracles. I put its pages in front of me and went from La D�fense to Porte Maillot without an accident, without some driver swerving to avoid me and yelling fils de pute! to the cold shoulder of my ears. I flew from Paris to Polokwane that evening, aware of the scent of home, aware this was my chance at cutting the long goodbye, and was whisked off, when I land...