'A Blade of Grass'...

A Blade of Grass (2003) - Lewis DeSoto


 first she must wash the seeds

she will grow
what she does not as yet grow

this is a land of separations
between veldt and cultivated
between wild and domestic
between black and white

in this unknown country
this wild place
she is nobody
she is unknown

Nobody knows me
Marit thinks
I am lost

in that image 
behind the glass 
Tembi sees something 
she has not yet become

she remembers the rules being broken

something to wear
something that is appropriate
to her new self
all her clothes are from another time
suitable only for a different person

only the women in the fields wore clothes like this

Marit stands taller now
but thinks
I could disappear
because I am made from something insubstantial
but Tembi is made from  the soil
she is this land


and there are soldiers
a confusion of friends
and enemies

betrayal
theft
sabotage

social shunning

murder

and a plague of locusts


Tembi watches a blade of grass arrow into the current

no longer her farm
no longer anybody's farm

it is futile to call Marit's name

she will grow
that which does not as yet grow

but first 
she must plant the seeds


*Like an overlay of soliloquies
but only one
survives

MY GOODREADS REVIEW

A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'A Blade of Grass' by Lewis DeSoto is an extraordinary novel set in the 1970's Boer white v. black conflicts of Africa. The novel is a sensitive insight into the lives of those trapped in the vague chaos of war; those whose lives really do not want to be branded black or white and those who revel in the branding, perhaps out of fear. This conflict fringes an attempt to maintain a semblance of farm life in the veldt lands; a semblance ultimately driven by 2 very different women - Marit and Tembi -from 2 very different worlds. And DeSoto's writing, his expression, has a particular appeal. Characters' thoughts are mulled over, explored, compared, remembered. The 3 parts of the novel - farm, land and river - each symbolise a time frame, getting closer to what really matters in life. Even a tiny blade of grass has a character role. By the close of the novel, the reader not only learns more about a troubled Africa, but hopefully feels more too.

View all my reviews