Curve above the surfers at Muizenberg
Dodge a drunk couple in Kalk Bay
Turn past the superettes in Fishoek
Whiz by the battleships in Simonstown
Veer away from a penguin at Boulder’s
And the night falls heavily as Miller’s Point approaches.
The sea is more black than the cobalt sky, and the stars run across it from Swartkop to the Kogelberg.
But by the time you rumble into the driveway at Blue Gums, your eyes have adjusted. It may be dark, but there is always light. The full moon lights the stairway or the the stars shine bright, a million pinpricks that pierce the black veil of the sea.
When night falls, the /Xam raise their tall tales of the stars. A girl skipped through the sky, scattering fiery ashes behind her like pollen in the wind. The Bushmen followed this glowing path home each night, the same spray of white that we call the Milky Way. But her constellation had a spicy edge as she scattered the contents of that night’s cooking fire, with tasty roots landing where red stars now lie. (Hollmann 2000)
In our night sky, there is no prancing maiden to fill the eve. The only sound of the distant beauty hovering above is the silent reminder of the beauty it is to live on solid ground, to care for it, to smell the kamphorbush and buchu in the breeze. Maybe I am the blind shepherd in Van Der Post’s recollection of the Star Woman’s Basket, but I do not long to sit upon a star. Stars look best from a distance.
One can draw meaning from a few constellations – bright scorpius (while ours glow beneath the granite stones), twisting serpens (ours too hide in the cool darkness beneath the bishes), dull aquarius (and in our waters, the magic swims beneath the surface). But at Blue Gums, we have it all here.
Our story is the quiet from the city, still developing in our bosoms as we seep into the sea and find our own solace. We grow over the night fires that we burn to the crackle of gum and from the fresh morning when the last star winks out and the mountain splays out above, wide and green.
One is dwarfed at Blue Gums, yet embraced all the same – a simple dot in a black galaxy, but we know our place in it.
It is a windy road home.
bluegumsfree 