Day 9 (21): Roelof's
Dam to Vredelust Dam, Kouebokkeveldberge
If
each of the 7 billion of us on this planet could possibly walk along
the western edge of the high expanse of water that is Roelof's Dam,
at dawn, and in silence, I think it would change the course of our
evolution. Unfortunately most cannot, and of those who can, few will
choose to. I am grateful that I am among those who can.
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| Photo: Galeo Saintz |
Along the shoreline, the turbulent ruggedness of quartzite butts up against a motionless serenity that reflects whole mountain ranges and skies. A meeting of opposites in the pure air of altitude. We leave the water behind us and below, and ascend into the ridges. Before we begin the steep descent beyond Roelof's Berg, we reach a high point from which we can look both forwards and backwards along our journey. Tafelberg stands like a beacon on the most distant skyline - five days walking behind us. Below us is the secluded, hollow beauty of Disa Valley, awaiting us, and across it, the precipitous pinnacle of Olifants River Dome, pointing skywards. Even on this high ridge, the air is still.
 |
| Photo: Charles Powne |
This
morning's silence, wandering across the bones of our earth, is the
perfect space to reflect on the skeletal in one's life. This is the
poem it inspires:
My
life is the layers of quartzite over which I walk,
jagged
and exposed here on the ridge-lines that they hold,
important
for now,
and
beautiful,
forged
in a heaving in-breath
on
the other side of time and experience,
a
gathering of particles,
pressed
together,
hard.
My
birth is the slow weathering of what is above me,
a
wearing away, a release of pressure,
a
rising to the light,
a
crack,
made
ready for life.
My
growing is a precarious balance,
a
falling down, a sculpting,
a
chisel strike by life's large hands,
shards
of shattered stone, the smell of flint.
And
what remains, stands proud on the skyline.
My
ageing is the dissolution
of
the physicality of what holds me together,
a
rusting into rivers,
a
salty journey to the sea.
And
then a re-gathering of particles
far
below me.
And
amongst them, perhaps,
a
small rounded nugget of quartz,
smooth
and milky white,
my
hardest, strongest part,
released
into the gathering
and
the heaving in-breath
of
the next generation of mountains.
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| Photo: Charles Powne |
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