Description: For Angie444 as promised a poem from Bushman lore the ancient people who live in the South African deserts. Joachim.
A Naron Bushman Song -------------------------------------------
The Wind and the Bird
(Naron Bushman Song)
The Wind is a man and goes out from his hut.
As a bird, Xgauwa goes with the Wind:
one with two names are they, Xgauwa and Hise.
The Wind has the bird with him and he walks a little way
but no more: from the earth he rises,
into the sky he shoots up, he soars
and he takes the grass and whirls it far
scatters it so it falls a great distance.
The magician sees the one walking with the Wind,
it is Xgauwa, and the bird speaks to him saying
‘I am he who arouses the Wind’ (after W.H.I. Bleek; Cope 1968:247).
How simply beautiful this is. Thank you for being so considerate as to oblige a young, curious poet (tehe). While reading this, I was entirely transfixed by the hypnotic power of it all and for the briefest moment I was plunged back in ancient times when magical beings lived among us(I absolutely love how the first verse begins. "The Wind is a man"). There seems to be just so much hidden wisdom in the poem I can't help feeling that maybe I'm not that able to grasp the entire meaning.(for example, is Hise the same as the Wind? Meaning that, in their flight, he and the bird are one?)
If, in my humble opinion, I am not wrong, the poem denotes a powerful feeling of longing. Longing for the power to be "he who arouses the wind" and also for the ability to renounce everything and fly into the distance, like a bird, neer to be heard of again. Indeed, I believe many of us would gladly give a bird their thoughts in exchange for her wings, her freedom. Alas, the only way we can truly be free is through our thoughts and our knowledge.
Thank you again for this.
Gallons of love,
Angie.
Submission Name: A Naron Bushman Song
