Tara Lumpkin in the field in Namibia, 1993
In old Africa:
Dust stirred by bare feet
and lions’ paws . . .
Gone now.
Today:
Deforestation,
cell phones,
honking horns,
human-laden vehicles
crawling like dung beetles
on roads,
trying to accelerate,
but going nowhere.
The human condition?
Nature ravaged.
I remember:
Planning great tasks,
planning to save . . .
someone, something, some being,
everyone, everything, all beings,
not knowing my efforts were fruitless,
that there was no way back
to the bush.
I interviewed Traditional Healers,
who spoke with the Ancestors,
who warned me of the danger
of sleeping with menstruating women,
who cautioned me
that doing so caused AIDS,
who explained
and treated
sickness, death, bad luck and bewitching.
All the while,
the country's Christ Chiefs
labelled them
Witchdoctors.
In the field:
We laughed and leapt high,
we sang songs,
knowledge coursed through us.
But in Windhoek:
In the UNICEF office
in the Sanlam Centre,
I forgot how to
think with my body.
And the Ministers,
the many Ministers of Everything,
did not grasp that
the cutting of trees
led to an increase in malaria,
as the Ancestors had foretold.
That which had been shared with me
I had to objectify
in The Report,
where, I could reveal
only bits and pieces,
just enough to please and pad
the brain-nest of the bureaucratic mind,
which alchemized love and pain
into projects, policies, and politics,
while simultaneously ignoring suffering.
Nevertheless
Even now, some say,
the Ancestors speak
to those who listen.
