Blind is the Deepest Love

Blind is the deepest love, where sight gives way to insight
And the wonder of her face is of no consequence

I summon my powers of composition, unswayed by her attraction
My skills of translation in the service of emotions

Language is my guide within her storybook of life
I hear her songs in lines made up more seductively than eyes

Dancing their descent and rise. And if I never see her face
I could find myself in her embrace
When I reach out with my heart to hold her close.

In the quiet of a small abode, large in its comforts
And in profile against a sky of endless dark

I dipped my small hands in the pristine pool
Of silence deep, finding a touch that made reply

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poem by Frank Bana
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The Weight You Carried from the Start, My Friend...

At Genesis we sang, learned to hold hands
And then abandoned one, the other too
Disappearing through the world, men strange and new

Unable to express the loss, to sing or cough
Or even to admit the weight
We carried down the road, inside a common soul

That space, that place of emptiness
To which some part within us fell, since we let go
The grip we held when juvenile and brave

We would not give it voice, to comfort
And assist, that it was both of us who bore
The weight and felt the loss the same

We could not ask, what kind of love, my friend,
Among loves manifold, are we?
What love is worthy of our name, what place

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poem by Frank Bana
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Seasons of Zimbabwe

The country newly-born, we were younger still
Jacaranda blossoms paved the stone under our feet
We drank the bittersweet coffee of the Chipinge hills
By the roadside in the glow of Independence

As we explored the central park's every hidden corner
The miniature Victoria Falls, the botanical treasures
And the open-air soapstone sculpture displays
You told me tipsy tales of Mzilikazi

We rode the flying bus down to the old Zimbabwe
And walked among the peaceful ruined walls
As peacocks strolled insoucient in the gardens
We climbed the fortress to view the rolling plains

The corn was white and tall the month we married
In an improvised bare office filled with laughter
Animals graced the hills above our reception
Music drifted to the border with Botswana

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poem by Frank Bana
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Shylock as a Man

As if taking possession of my loans
They took my daughter, lured her to climb down
From this high casement, whereupon she sat
In service to my books and solitude

She left by night and closed the window soft
Against a father's soul, opprobrium
Seeped in to douse the waxy candlelight
That has flickered, fragile, in these ages long

I stand robbed of my wealth and vital strength
Of all that keeps me whole and makes of me
A lineage, a man, all I am left
Exposed, red-hatted, chastened and bereft

Myself I can transform beyond their powers
Through wiles and skills that centuries provide
To anticipate the ways of thieves and lawyers
And walk within shadows of the divine

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poem by Frank Bana
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Insisting on Peace

Peace is said to be elusive!
But peace is not elusive really
When it is loved and prized

Above other desires
Peace is what we think of
When we hold our children's hands

And behold our futures
In a moment's contemplation
Of our deepest needs and plans.

Bread or rice or porridge
Garnished with some sweetness
And the relish still to come -

So is peace upon the tongue
A simple obligation
Daily duty undertaken

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poem by Frank Bana
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Challenge to Joy

That evening
I sat in weary happiness on the high marble steps
Of Grand Central Station, still hearing Dylan sing
Through the sweet-smelling air of the Beacon Theatre
As if the whole world's heart would be opening

As if white magic had taken hold
And for this night - or was it for two -
A remote transformation was possible
To a time of great joy, diamond-hard and true

That night
When I stood in cowhide boots, guitar in hand
Beside the slow-moving Okavango waters
The thatch-covered Bistro still echoing with songs
We sang to amuse the cattlemen's daughters

Everything seemed more spacious around
And inquisitive moonlight disclosed to me
The motions of beasts on the opposite bank

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poem by Frank Bana
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Here she walks...

Here she walks in the shade of solitary hills
Hair swaying, skin browned, cotton shirt upon her back
And sandals open to the dust, the camera hangs from her neck
And nestles on her breast. She frames
The silent frontier town that lies before her
With the living shutters of her eyes.

The crowds in the oasis know the name she's taken.
As one woman, child and man, they name her in their tongue
And with their gaze demand of her and whisper for each other
The reason for her smile, the playtime of her eyes -
A distant lover, transported? Or a letter
Delivered by mysterious means, unseen hands?

For she is smiling in the solid arms
Of her freedom at each step increasing. No man
Can raise his hand against her, not in rage
Nor with premeditation. No father now
Can make a servitude for her, no mother
Can turn away her face and and close her heart.

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poem by Frank Bana
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Soul Music, food and wine

Soul Music, food and wine
For the hunger of our days
Expression of the mortal and divine
 
Stevie Wonder, Lauren Hill
Seize and sing the moment when
The loving heart becomes sublime and still
 
Curtis, Marvin, bass and horns
Cast protesting visions high
Into the stormy sacred sky
 
O'Jays, Dusty, Frieda Payne
Romantic love on a peace train
Incited dreams while the Supremes
Washed my senses in the rain
 
Now when I was a boy I knew
No black and white - only blue
I knew the charts by heart

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poem by Frank Bana
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Dream Betrayed

The child that from the corpse-heap rose
Nursed by the light of faces in horror
From the stumbling-on of devil’s ditch;
Dredged of swamp and covered in ash
The cripples of the wire, now linked in arms
Hit out in extinction’s fury, as locusts razed the fields
Where grass and fruit-trees shadowed the sand
Schools and play-pens built and ruined –
And barren homeland smeared with flowers.

The children spread, their brothers met in cities
Where newly-starred and ancient pushed for place;
In unalikeness found they middle-men to rule
In common proclamation, raising blue eyes to a heaven
Where phantom faultless ghetto fighters
Blazed ignorance of 'insects' they trod among
Spread nets against the honeyed hives of kings
That gave no home to brothers all.

In nation’s mantles grew they, lonely –

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poem by Frank Bana
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Blood Lines

Maybe this will be the last journey
And I will not return again
Riding down to the stony beach
Where spring once was gentle
and love innocent

Now autumn clings on, struggles for breath
Gliding on the tops of cliffs
The paths that resisted invasion
Germany, Spain, the French
Its strength diminishing by the year

Torn by winter's claws, relentless
Brave young defenders, sons of refugees
Stubborn homemakers, not ready to yield
Their locus of happiness by the sea

I chose the train and not the bus
Thinking how you converse in carriages
Like those Ealing films, black and white

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poem by Frank Bana
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