GHAAP - Sonnets from the Northern Cape

Ghaap
Sonnets from the Northern Cape
by Michael Cope

5 Mind Place

The human mind was woven in this place:

thread was spun from rain, fire, stone and wind.

On the loom of these trees, this system, these

corms, grasses, animals, it was set as twine.

They wove it with what came to hand: blood, sex,

calls, signs, traces of the feet of beasts

wound with food, stars, long or sudden death,

stitched-in spirits and explanations, facts and gods,

changes, invariants and differences.

They were slow and everyday. Their getting through

was itself the warp and weft, back and forth

as the world changed for a million years.

When it was made they took it everywhere
until there was no place where it was not.