Roots,
Where are my roots?
In the soil of truth
Or true desire?
Desiring truth,
To be rooted in love and
not heartache.
Where should I sink my roots
When there is blood on the ground.
And there are bones in the soil.
And the skeletons of the past
Laugh toothless laughs on
Swinging jaws?
When dead people are planted,
Their bodies lie inside graves
Not fields.
Souls harvested from the husks
Of their flesh
And now I can only feed off the memory
Of my mother’s smile
And the sound of my grandmother’s laugh
On a Saturday evening.
The maize in Gogo’s garden
Is green, sporting yellow cobs,
towering over the Durawall.
I catch her ghost caressing the leaves
Of each golden crop.
Assessing the quality of her living
Husband’s work.
Now living has become its own work.
Piles of clothes soaking in salt water.
Pots of food on open fires.
How people swing in and out of
Mourning homes like revolving doors.
Like revolving doors,
This course is elliptical.
Life’s winding paths are subliminal.
We exchange relays of this race.
Unsure of where the finish line is.
Where to place the baton,
When the last breath of the body is gone.
Bata maoko,
Hold the hands,
Feel the fingers of grief
The cold knuckles between.
How calloused the palms,
How bruised the tips,
The weeping thumb.
Footsteps in the corridor,
& ashen faces of women gathered on the floor.
A mattress for the bereaved, shrouded in black.
A priest and his pious prayers.
Men sitting like bent oak trees.
We wash the hands but not the feet.
We watch the elders eat,
Sadza ne muriwo.
Pasina mhuri iripo.
Ndipei mashoko azvo.
Ndipakure shungu mundiro.
Mandiri munorwadza.
A casket for the body.
A basket for the tears.
Mari yechema.
NaMaria ayichema.
AnaNeria vakabereka nherera kumusana.
Chemai netariro ramangwana.
The hosho and the hymns.
The deadening of night.
The dawn of morn,
When the sun brings her light.
Reeling from the loss.
Healing is the cost.
And the legacy of love,
At death’s single coin’s toss.
Chioniso Tsikisayi is a spoken word poet, writer, filmmaker, and singer based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Her work has appeared in Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine, Litro Magazine and The Kalahari Review. She is the first runner up for the 65th Kenya Poetry Slam Africa Contest and placed third for the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2021. Her poetic offerings have been translated to Italian and Spanish by Afrowomen Poetry and Vuela Palabra respectively.
She tweets as @chichicelest.