Living in the stormwater pipes deep underground
the pavements of Sandton,
you let your blankets go not to drown in the downpours.
For most of 30 years you were always
in the garden harvesting eggs tending my ducks
and my guinea fowls.
Masvingo, from Gwamagwama,
you drank – Masvingo – excessively
and you became a stranger to your own family at your home town
[if we dare to call it a town].
When the neurosurgeon penetrated your brain with his scalpel in the
bush-make-shift-clinic – you survived.
You celebrated it with a home-brewed concoction,
lost in the bush, wandering around and around smoking endless
cigarettes – and survived.
Years later, you left all of us behind with our memories,
broken memories, splintered memories to laugh at or to cry.
Leonard Ledwaba Masvingo Ndlovu
from Gwamagwama: rest in peace.
*Please click here to watch the poet’s visit to Leonard in Gwamagwama some years ago.
Leonard at Gwamagwama Plumtree 2017
Preparing lunch roasting ground nuts at Gwamagwama in 2017
Leonard & Annemarie
Read – Colour Me Blue – A Poem by Nicole Grandaho, Benin Republic
