Mother Africa

Ultimate Creatrix 

You held us, naive and selfish babes, in your pulsing bosom; 

The warm plains and lightning skies knew nothing on your hold 

As you taught us what it was to feel ourselves. 

Your jasmine breath in the evening breeze has always said to us, Mama, 

“You are held, you are held” 

And as we grew barefoot into our own souls 

The amber Earth beneath our arches, the sandy eyes of the deserts watching us;

The green heartbeat of the mountains loving us;

The plover call and fish eagle song ringing in our ears 

It was you Mama, who called us to know our Earth and our grounding 

To fly with the birds, but honour sacred home, 

To sing our song, but sing it for each other - to love deeply and not with flight

In this way Mama, you set us free

You showed us, Mama, through the wounded, limping ways of humanity 

How freedom cannot co-exist with entitlement and it cannot walk with lust 

You showed us the snares of selfishness and gaping wounds inflicted by hopeless desire

Mama, the rhinos cried, shot down by greed like bullets in the back

And children starved Mama!

when we met each other in all the wrong places

When did lovers become hedonists Mama? Searching for the next high, and the next 

Not feeling at all Mama... misconstruing the meaning of love for fleeting light Remember when love held us like the ocean, Mama, full and deep and strong, just like your waters showed us

When did we get so muddled Mama, that we forgot the importance of roots?

As deep as the baobab, as inter-connected as the fungal mitochondria 

The ecstasy of fruit is nothing without knowing the dark places we grew from

The joy is nothing, when it is only joy.

We look for answers from you, Mama

And you show us that thorns are not the ending;

That on a journey, you need not change direction when you meet the valley, 

But that there is a way through, and over...

We find ourselves lost Mama, forgetting

That the poison of feared branches is sometimes our greatest medicine 

That in everything, in everything,

There is love

You showed us, Mama

How the most free among us are the ones who hold authenticity above all 

The dove who longs for nothing but to be a dove

And the painted dog, who is nothing without the print of itself

In humans, it is your love Mama, that showed us  - 

Existence in community, in holding, in devotion to each other

Through hardship and joy, in resilience too. 

In accepting our humanity, Mama

It is as if we are able to accept each other 

As if we were a piece of you, too.

With the whirling of lust and the loneliness of bliss, 

Where are we really, other than disconnected?

In the eyes of others who hold us as we are

And love us as we really are:

Broken, light, divine, lost, selfish, beautiful… 

We are all.

Mama, you set us alight as your setting sun, 

The soul of your being dulls into the pink horizon 

And you open us as you close your eyes for the night

To set free the stars, and set free our hearts 

Unto themselves, unto us, unto you  Mama, let us know the difference in the land and the sea and the sky But know all of them are in us too,

To know mama that we are deep, as deep as you

In your dust we dance awake and alive, to fall as your dust again one day too

The ultimate Creatrix, our mother, Africa

Photographs by Alexandrina Fleming: https://www.anamcarafilmstudios.com/alexandrina