Seeds of the Heart

You were born quietly, from water into water.

Your mother moaned and breathed out. You breathed in as we rose together into candlelight.

The cord that connected us gave up its pulse. Your life filled my heart.

Your father’s laughter filled the room.

The cord filled a small space between dark soil and the fragile roots of a coral tree. The tree grew silently, slowly, slenderly, out of your thought and sight. You came to know it was your tree but it was too small to climb, too sparse for birds to nest, too young to dazzle with the fiery-fingered flowers from which it took its name.

 

As you grew, you swung from the mango tree, jumped from the litchi, hung a hammock between the palms and raided the mulberry.

Each April there were blankets and tables set in the shade of the flat crown and flamboyant. Balloons were strung across the garden and children slid down grassy banks and dive-bombed into the pool in celebration of your birthday.

In June the monkeys became brave with desperation. They catapulted from the jacaranda to the Sumatran cherry, plundered the bananas and escaped across the roof into the leopard tree.

By August you were kicking a ball in the dust and gathering fallen twigs to start a braai in the fire pit.

The coral tree was leafless but the jasmine was blooming, filling the sharp dry air with its sweet breath.

In October, the jacaranda clothed the bare soil in blue. We walked softly across the flowers, following butterflies, up the steps, through the gate, to where the forgotten coral tree flaunted its first tight red buds.

 

And so the years passed. Marked by the flowering and fruiting of trees, the falling of leaves and branches and the changing of games.

Your coral tree and your sister’s umkhanyakude competed to grow to the light. But she was always shining from afar and did not see.

 

It was August again when I told you that we had to move. The cold, the dust and the news made you cough.

‘We can’t leave’, you told me. ‘Where will all the children play? If anyone buys this house they will knock it down and build flats with no garden, or make a truck park and fill in the pool!’

‘The children have grown’, I replied. ‘They will also move.’

‘But we cannot leave’, you insisted. ‘My umbilical cord is buried here.’

I smiled a sigh. ‘Your umbilical cord and your sister’s have long grown trees. The trees have flowered many times and the birds have carried seeds across the land. In that way, even trees can fly.’

And it is like that with people. We are not uprooted, we are connected; and we make each other free with the seeds of our hearts.

 

26 August 2017. After being uprooted.