The fist of darkness slips,
And a panther black sky eases its grasp
On the craggy nobility of the Drakensberg.
As pale lavender crawls from the horizon,
They raise a slate grey eye towards the dawn,
Clawing for light from the edges of their untamed skirts.
Teasing from the shadows,
Quartz and feldspar wink from ancient granite talons,
Sparkling with the first torrid glances of the March sun.
An alluvial valley spreads deep into the distance.
A primeval green. Lush, emerald hillocks drowse,
Smoky in dream, as shrouds of silver and ivory mist
Curl their tendrils into each crevice,
Caressing the shear lava cliffs like a ghostly satin chemise.
Stand on their crowns and survey antiquity.
A range of lava teeth on a bed of granite gums
Towering above the northern savannah.
Ancient spirits to the warriors and hunters
That have lived and died in these grounds.
Silent witness to survival, war, and injustices.
Guardians of a land steeped in history.
Bones from the earliest echoes of man
Lay strewn in their scrabble hard palms,
Fragments of another age.
As another day swoons to a close
The quavering eye of a red yolk sun
Spills blood deep into their rifts and folds.
Once again they will sleep,
Again the silent guardians,
Primal memories kept in their mute canyons,
The Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal.
A lair for the birth of dragons and dreams.
