Unexpectedly Finding Hope
from Poems for the Prophet,
page 17
ISBN:1-931002-50-9
Petaluma, 2006
$10
A middle-aged English violinist
Hears sour strings on the BBC.
She doesn’t pour more tea.
She gets her friends to play around London.
Calls it Busk-Aid.
Raises ten thousand dollars
For better instruments.
But the heart chakra
Has been opened.
She follows with the gift
Of herself.
Now lives & works in Soweto,
Though she’s been mugged twice
& is a white woman
In a sea of poverty.
But one person whose heart
Is open
Can make small miracles.
Her tough, demanding teaching
& these children’s suffering
& ancient, indigenous soul
Turns a Viennese waltz
Into a black statement
Of the power of art
To transform & dignify
Our hopes & our pains.
She knows how much
Rhythm lives in these
Old souls—these children of hardship.
Thus while practicing
The violinists stroll around
The cellos & basses.
And what these children really like to play is
Kwela—a music named for
The policemen’s order:
“CLIMB INTO THE VAN!”
They transform this awful command
& all it stands for
Into the Soweto boogie.
I mean it swings
The way B. B. King swings.
“No slave master can keep us down
& we don’t forget the fallen.
We rise! We rise while remembering
THEM.”
And the faces, the faces—
Ecstatic black faces
Playing for their champion.
White haired, eyes gleaming.
That big hearted smile—
Nelson Mandela dancing
To their swing.
And one white haired Englishwoman
Didn’t just send a check.
Rosemary Nalden opened her heart
And sent herself.
That my friends—
In such a dark hour—
Is the human spirit.
