Entangled

Here, basking in the privilege Sue generously shares with me, away from the heatwave sucking life out of Portland, I get a message from Relebohille (Lebo), Palesa’s little sister. She’s the one raising Palesa’s children now, still deep in mourning, overwhelmed by responsibility. She’s on death watch again. Their eldest brother Taemane has lung cancer and is dying in hospital slowly, gasping for each breath just as Palesa gasped a year ago. Taemane is no longer conscious but not yet free, and Lebo brings him food he cannot eat and sits beside him, sobbing. 

Sue gave me a new book of Ted Kooser’s poetry. I want to share these photos from this exquisite morning and this poem:

At Dusk, in December
by Ted Kooser

Driving a gravel road in the country
I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch
with a mouse in its beak, and it flew
along beside my car for a minute,
the mouse still alive, its little legs
running as fast as they could, and there
we were, the three of us, all going
in the same direction, west, at just
a little under forty miles per hour.