(i)
in the garden of life, a flower bloomed then withered away
leaving me to assume that death is a mystery,
a door that is unseen, a passage to somewhere unclean and unclear
yet even in death your memory remains
a bitter sweet reminder of the love that we sustained
a flame that flickers still and a love that is timeless,
spaceless thing that death cannot invade –
Memories.
(ii)
in the silence of the night I feel your presence near,
a whispered promise that memories will never fade,
like the embers of the dying fire
I search for solace in the darkness of night
but the shadows whisper, why did you take flight?
time is a river flowing, that takes me away
from the shores of yesterday
to the uncertain bay of tomorrow’s horizon
where the sun dips into the sea leaving me
with the stars to navigate the mystery,
It will dull the ache never erase it –
Time.
(iii)
the birds migrate to distant land and skies
our time together was a fleeting and a temporary surprise
a dance of moments, a cinch of hours, a brief shining span
a lifetime worth of love, condensed into a fragile flickering plan-
Flight.
does the soul take flight like a bird in the air?
Or
does it dissolve in the mist?
Ruvimbo Martha Jeche is a bilingual poet and writer passionate about preserving her native language, Shona. She co-authored Jongwe neSheche (2022) and Kuchema nekunakirwa (2024) with Nelson Mutongi. Ruvimbo has contributed to anthologies such as Dear Married Man, Tesserae: a mosaic of poem by Zimbabwean women (Carnelian Heart Publishing, 2023), and Speaking Truth to Power Poetry Anthology (International Human Rights Arts Festival, 2023). She is also featured in the Newsday and the Standard courtesy of Gourd of Consciousness Poetry, the Labila Magazine (Zambia) and the Nation Paper (Malawi).