Rethabile Masilo

Simon

We arrived after dark, the place already full,

and looked for spaces to pitch our tents;

then sat down and contemplated the stars,

pointing out those we knew by name that are

to children a familiar connect-the-dots

at the playground; we drew them completely

to how they appeared to our eyes, tracing lines

with our fingers in the air—before meeting

the man Jesus. I cannot recall whether

we later played shax, but the night was rife

and a fire flung sparks into the darkness above.

He was near, praying in the park somewhere:

one could tell, you could almost smell him.

And perhaps we played shax but who

can remember such a thing? No one

was going to escape the moment, taken from

scrolls and tablets with tombstone shapes,

and brought before us like a sacrificial lamb.

He was kneeling near the silence of the grove

and knew his sun would rise on Judea,

whose kingdom spread from here to the sea,

knew to stop praying when cries of pilgrims

came from afar as they realised what was

going down, at the time that was right

for the carpenter to bring out his cross,

chiselled, smoothed over with a plane, oiled,

and women had mixed salt-water with herbs

for the bathing of feet. The black man Simon

was just setting off for the synagogue, biltong

and dried fruit in a pouch at his waist, along

a road where hordes lined the sides, waiting

with boards of shax folded under their arms.

                                       photo by Al Clayton

 

Rethabile Masilo was born in Lesotho and currently resides in Paris, France. His first contributions to Canopic Jar appeared in 1986 while he was attending Maryville College in the mountains of East Tennessee. He has been the co-editor and prime mover of the Jar since 2004 when he was enlisted to help bring the magazine into the 21st century. His book of poems, Things that Are Silent, will be published by the Pindrop Press in 2012.

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