Bushbabies and Bananas

Words written and published in 2013.  Song created 2026. A conversation with the Heart of the World… The tears you weep,            I keep               within                  me,    they wake me at night when it feels   as if the Light        has left            us for your heart    is my heart,        I feel your pain           as the soft grey rain crying out for the caged ones,    the starving ones,             the unseen tragedies,             ...

I wrote this 11 years ago, but today its for Limba.. a tortured soul, enslaved for human entertainment in a zoo in faraway Canada... Who knew the cold snow of a foreign land, but never ever the hot sunlight of her homeland which was her birthright, stolen from her... And for all the animals (and humans) trapped far from home, enslaved, despairing.... Child of Africa Snow is drifting gently down but it’s the hot veldt air ruffling my hair and I don’t  feel the soft flakes on my upturned face nor the whispering wind on my skin for I raise my eyes to wide African skies and this world around me goes dim; As the roar of the traffic dulls my mind I feel a hunger so strong, so deep the pulse of the land that shaped me calling to me in my sleep I must go soon, my spirit is dying longing for the majestic still pacing this cage, my soul is crying for the rolling green valleys and hills; The meandering rivers, blood of the...

I first came into contact with Kenesias Dambakurima when I saw him reading my poem For the Fallen   outside the Chinese consulate in Cape Town as part of the Flowers for Them campaign for Qumquat, the matriarch elephant whose whole herd was gunned down in October 2012. He contacted me some time after that to say he would like to read my poems aloud to his children, and on an album.  I was touched and humbled. I tried to write something that he could read to us all in Africa.  Change is desperately needed.  We have a beautiful continent which is being raped. If anybody is familiar with the Grail Quest of Arthurian legend... the Wounded King represents the split between Sovereignty (the Goddess/land) and the people. Ecopsychology takes it out of the mythical realms into everyday language of how damaged the human psyche is because we have lost contact with the land. So Kenesias, dear warrior... this is for you and for every African of every race, cree...

To an Ivory Carver Stranger, far far away please hear my words from a quiet forest in Africa Close your eyes run your fingers over the cool smoothness of the ivory before you feel the presence of a gentle nobility next to you let it touch your spirit open your heart to it This presence was once living breathing a beloved stitch of the tapestry of trees and waterholes He walked mile upon mile through burning plains cool forests in sunshine in rain He too felt Hunger as you do He too felt thirst as you do He too mourned His dead as you do Lift your face to the African sun feel it warm you as He did hear the scolding churr of the Oxpecker as He did taste the river water as He did smell the dry Savannah as He did feel the freedom of the cool Night from the heat of the sun as He did Now open your eyes and see what is left of the magnificence of Him lying before you What your industry has reduced him to… He deserved to die in His time in peace with His world but you far away had ordered his ...

A Blessing for the Eco-Warriors Earth    Mother,     these hearts       these weary, aching hearts they break anew each day    a thousand ways these brave warrior hearts      bleed for the animals           and You Please lend us strength to handle the horror that we might stay strong    Guide us in our actions to take        inspire us on our paths that we may have Heaven on Earth the way You meant it to be Angels stay with us   protect us on our journey      bathe us in Light these weary Warriors     fighting the good fight when all is Dark    and our flame flickers and sputters let us know Faith     and healing with love Yours    and our own When we look ahead and see a barren Earth  dead and empty of the beloved beasts remind us of winter     and the seed deep underground    which a...

They cut you, precious you,   peeling away your skin your life    as you lay just alive in agony utterly shocked at the horror of    Us All this pain so some empty human could wear your skin next to theirs for the pleasure and the status for their pleasure and vanity you died, precious you, with the horror of Us in your consciousness from your birth to your gruesome torturous end What a miserable life you were bred into neglected unfed unloved cold huddled in terror you waited to meet your grand destiny  that Mankind the Civilized had in store for you and humanity became a little less human this day that they peeled your skin your life away while you lay just alive in agony utterly shocked at the horror of    Us. Christine Jordaan (2013)  The picture that I wrote this about... I could not post... I can't look at it.  Its too unbearable to look at. What a...

It was Springtime    and you were a child in my forests         in awe at the splendor of the towering trees I gave you rainbows to smile at after the storm    and butterflies when you slipped and fell down        a whole garden of friends in all shapes and sizes with feathers, and fur      scales and claw       so much for you to love             and to love you I sob now   those forests are torn down        and tears of acid raining on dead ground You have grown away from me    slipping into a treeless realm where my soft sunlight cannot reach you   I sing to you on the evening breeze but you have built walls to shut me out      and discord has entered the lands In this,   the a...

Qumquat,  you will not come down to drink today    nor tomorrow        nor any day   the birds are missing your gentle presence        in the cool forest glades           at the heat of midday You are now a memory   a dream of the trees and savannah     an echo of a song the wind whispered to the sun         of a picture She painted when the world was born Your well-worn trails lead now    to sad empty spaces      down at the river at dawn Qumquat and all the Fallen      we mourn you you were gentle and humble     asking nothing         except to live free as is your birthright    we mourn you You are gone      cruelly murdered in gr...

Today I marched for the elephants. I marched for the right of a species to simply carry on living And I marched too for my soul the right of my soul to dance in joy in the full ecosystem that Nature gifted to humans not to just exist in the barren wasteland that Mankind is creating And I marched for the right of my son to grow up with elephants as part of the human psyche not with their memory a story to be told with regret and too-late-tears And I marched for all the other beings in all shapes, colours, and sizes who are suffering under Man’s occupation and dominion of Earth And as I marched with the sweat pouring into my eyes and the drumbeat of Africa inside me and around me proudly holding my banner high I do not think that in all the colourful chaos anyone noticed the tear slip from my eye Today I marched for the elephants with adults and children of all races and creeds in 43 cities around the Earth we marched for the Gentle Giant...