Sangoma
The sky is heavy with rain.
She touches heads of hundreds with her hand
and walks among them, the bones
in her sack in agreement with the clan;
she touches the swollen parts of every back,
face, foot sole, then walks
toward the rondavel where she keeps
medicines her father left in phials,
the muti of a thousand memories,
and roots she digs herself when dew
has softened the earth enough, and true power
in the flesh of plants is ripening.
With a pestle she pounds root tips in a cup
and mixes them with red sap from a phial
off the shelf. Tomorrow she will touch
heads of thousands with a red, healing stain
on the tips of her fingers. And she will tell
her ancestors to send down the rain.
"Sangoma" is from Qoaling by Rethabile Masilo
(Onslaught Press, 2018).
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