South Africa Freedom Day Apr 27, 1994: "Two Places, Two Dreams" (Updated: 2013 Mandela Day)

To commemorate Mandela Day and his 95th birthday, I am updating the blog article that was posted first on April 27, 2012, after my trip to South Africa.

The authour of the poem, Ingrid de Kok, was born in South Africa in 1951. She emigrated to Canada and lived here from 1977 to 1984 before moving back to her homeland.

I chose these photos of South Africa and Canada to accompany her beautiful poem.

"Two Places, Two Dreams" - Ingrid de Kok

My child, brought from his own country,

is sleeping in a Cape bed

where the black south-easter

delivers boats and fish

to his hot summer dream

of kelp and tentacles

that hang like fingers from his hands.

In his other dream

pines, like ravens blue with cold,

fly into the ice,

and snow falling from low branches

sifts onto his thin chest.

As he calls in the dark,

"Come," "Go,"

the sea invades the low lagoon

and the red cardinal shaken from his sheet

flies into its dense natal tree.

Source:
"Seasonal Fires - New and Selected Poems" by Ingrid de Kok, South Africa (c. 1988, 1997, 2002, 2006); Poems from Familiar Ground (1988): page 27

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

* Top: The Great Karoo / Drakensberg Mountain

* Bottom: The Canadian Rockies / Mount Robson

Related links:

* For my other blog articles and photos on South Africa: Click here -- "Travel to South Africa"* http://passiontounderstand.blogspot.ca/2009/04/south-africa-freedom-day-27-april.html

Wikipedia:
Ingrid de Kok (born 1951) is a South African author and poet. Ingrid grew up in Stilfontein, a gold mining town in what was then the Western Transvaal. When she was 12 years old, her parents moved to Johannesburg. In 1977 she emigrated to Canada where she lived until returning to South Africa in 1984. ...

Ingrid is a Fellow of the University of Cape Town, an Associate Professor in Extra Mural Studies and part of a team of two that designs and administers the public non-formal educational curriculum that constitutes the Extra-Mural Programmes at the University of Cape Town. .... She is the Chair of the South African Association of Canadian Studies.

Between 1977 and 2006 Ingrid's poems have been published in numerous South African literary journals, including Upstream, Sesame, Staffrider, Contrast, New Contrast, New Coin, Carapace. Occasionally poems have also appeared, translated into Afrikaans, in various South African Afrikaans newspapers....