Baloyi's art gallery

for Albie Sachs

it's a round chapel-like gallerybaloyi built it with bare hands in the bushwith everything he could findwithout begging or sulking

he built it with stones and bricksand grass and reeds and weedshe built it with grey tilesand scraps of steel and corrugated iron

mirrors glint on the wallswheel hubs have moulded the spherical windowsthe floor is covered by patterned cowdungthe walls are painted with ochre and animal figures

baloyi bought a generatorhe was tired of finding his way through fireflies, moon and starshe bought a truck to collect twisted logs of mondobrought down by elephants in phafuri and makuleke

baloyi sat under the mango treecarving drums with tails and legshis darlings—kangaroos and camelsdolphins and shuddering beasts

carving and filing wingless birds that soared up in the skiescarving tindzhundzhu with breasts that glugged mudcarving a godzilla to guard the constitutional court in distant joburgcarving the foreign species that surround his dreams

albie sachs came to the opening of baloyi's art galleryhow i wish he were the minister of arts and culturehe would buy and place these sculpturesin all of our public spaces

now baloyi has died and clouds are forming, rains are comingwater will pour through the leaking roofants will mottle the wood piece by pieceuntil it dissolves