My life is divided in 2. There are 2 countries that share me, my heart, and my family. My first love and motherland is sunny, beautiful, complicated, hopeful South Africa. I grew up in the purple-kissed Jacaranda City – Pretoria. Every October the streets are strewn with a rich carpet of delicate petals. It is a royal ride into the city!
(Photo credit: Engel & Völkers)
I have a first-born son who can call that town and that land his own; he was born just before they blossomed and he, like these marvelous trees, roots my heart deep in the soil of Africa. But there is another country and another love that have since become my own – the Cherry-blossom capital of the USA has adopted my heart and offered home to my family. Because that is where I met Peter.
It was beneath a cherry blossom sky
that I
first heard the news
that you
would be the one I’d love a decade hence.
And, deliciously, I still do.
Because once upon a Summeryou sent a taproot out from your heart
to mine
past the borders you had known
to a time and place
where you could grasp my country as your home.
Buried beneath a jacaranda treeI thought my heart would be
incapable of transplant to this place;
but I was wrong. And now every spring
a song of cherry blossom intoxication fills my veins
and I feel my heart
once again
blossom and bloom and flower for you.
