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CHRIS MANN (b. 1948)
``` CHRIS MANN (b. 1948)
Rini Bougainvilleas
Late spring, the bougainvilleas in lank, thorn-spined clusters of purple, crimson and orange sprout in Grahamstown’s streets.
The rains gone, a berg wind gushes dry heat through town, wilting bean-shoots and roses, sealing the soil to baked clay.
This is the season of dread, when frontier fears revive. Touching the window-bars, you wince at the shoot-outs
and rape on the midday news and watch across the street a slow shadow whose young live overseas chain her gate.
What is indigenous endures, you think, but what endures becomes like bougainvillea indigenous within its niche.
Beside the crust of a lawn a cycad’s armoured innards, an ant-heap’s domed vitals tortoise through the hours. ```
Rini Bougainvilleas In late spring, the bougainvilleas
grow in thin, thorny clusters
of purple, red, and orange in the streets of Grahamstown. With the rains gone, a berg wind brings dry heat through the town,
causing bean shoots and roses to wilt, hardening the soil into baked clay. This is the time of fear, when worries about the border return.
As you touch the window bars, you flinch at the news of shootings and assaults on the midday news and see across the street
a slow-moving shadow whose children live abroad and keep her gate locked. What is native survives, you think, but what survives
becomes like bougainvillea native within its own space. Next to the edge of a lawn is a cycad’s tough inner parts,
the dome-shaped insides of an ant hill slowly moving through the hours.