The Life Righting Collective runs courses to encourage self-exploration through life writing, raises funds for course fees and brings people together to share their stories and grow community.
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TANNIE by GWENDOLYN MEYER

Author:
Published date:
28/09/2023
Tannie 1

Tannie, she speaks

Of eating flamingos

And skilpad

And the fisherman who cleaned 

The brak spring by the bay

A line of men

Passing 

The buckets of muddy water.

Of getting lost

In the veld, surviving

On veldkos

All day

Of all the people dead

And all her

Cousins and brothers

Twenty-three of them

That live in the

Dust Mountain fountain

Stofsbergfontein

Of the burn when she was five
Boiling water from the pot
An accident while cooking 


And the one place where the doctor coming from the town

Could cross the lagoon in a boat with a sail 

Of the oysters and everything 

That is now long gone.

Of the snakes that have come 

Cobra, pofadder and boomslang 

Since the Parks board

Have been here these

Twenty years

With their many rules

Of how first the rich came 

Then the thieves

At night 

No one knows from where

To take away from the rich

We say goodbye 

Her bright eyes 

Fading 

Alone here 

In the shadow of the past 

The Life Righting Collective runs courses to encourage self-exploration through life writing, raises funds for course fees and brings people together to share their stories and grow community.
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