Beloved poet Diana Ferrus mourned

By Sandile Memela

Diana Ferrus was one in a million that when you first meet her, you discovered a long lost auntie, older cousin or a Magogo that you did not know.

A woman leader and prophetic voice.

She was warm, humble and, above all, full of the milk of human kindness. Her spirit lives.

THEY CAME TO TAKE YOU BACK HOME

( for Diana Ferrus )

Nobody told me that

your departure would be quick and sudden like a bullet in the back

I did not expect you to go

after only six scores and a dozen years

When I heard they had called

to take you back home, it hurt

A deep cut that pierced the soul

I wish someone had kept us updated

Your name in the evening headlines

about how you were coping and fighting back

My heart is sore with the pain I experienced only with the death of my mother

When did our souls intertwine, I ask

Time of the Writer was infectious

But there is no moment to define it

There was prose and poetry in the air

Your words rattled in the wind

filled our souls and hearts with comfort

to sooth our trauma and pain

as you recited and reclaimed the spirit

of Sarah Baartman

after she was forgotten for over a century.

‘I have come to take you back’

And you brought her back home

This heartache that I feel

is like a silent killer that creeps on one

Yet it does not make me wince in pain

I gasp for breath and my heart skips a beat These are a mark of your spiritual transition

There are no visible signs

that you are not dead

But there is a cloud lingering in the air

an intuitive link between the spiritual physical

and a bridge between the past, present and future

I shall not mourn

We, The Living, must celebrate your life

Death and the State must be ashamed

But this is the only path

to the super natural world beyond

Let His will be done

This is not your end

It is a transition

the kind that transmorgrifies

a body into a guardian spirit

You and Sarah Baartman rest as one, now.

There must be a gain in our loss.