Breath of the Earth

By Dr Teedzani Thapelo

i stand here, lungs heavy with the ash of indifference
grey tendrils curling like smoke from a fire that never cools
every breath i take—half stolen, half given back—
draws poison from skies that once held songbirds in dance
now crowded with the quiet choke of our forgetting.

my chest feels the weight of cities grinding, machines devouring
their hum a relentless growl in the belly of the world
and my throat—once open as morning—shudders shut.

what is this air that wraps my skin, that fills the hollow of my ribs?
not the clean kiss of dawn but a breath thick as grief
a taste as bitter as the rusted bones of industry left to rot,
i think of the children born in clouds of smog
their lungs opening first to the haze of our making…

but close your eyes with me and dream another way:
a day when the winds return laughing like children
sweeping clean the dust of regret and refuse,
imagine the morning clear as a river’s song
where i breathe and you breathe and the earth sighs

its vast chest rising in relief…its heartbeat steady
the air an unbroken ribbon of cool green life;
i want this world to hold not crumble in our hands
like sand slipping through fingers too quick to forget

and i want you to feel it too—this ache for the open air
for the song of trees unchained from chainsaw symphonies
for rivers that run clear as forgiveness reflecting skies
unburdened by our shadow.

who will lift the sky back to its rightful blue?
you with your light switch, your car…your voice;
me with the choices that mark each day’s breath
and those beyond—leaders with power like rain or drought.

rise with me in this soft green hope
a hope that calls us back to the soil, the river…the sky
each breath a promise to be kinder, softer; awake:
hold this earth close, feel her pulse in your veins.

look up, see the sky as it could be—endless kind
a canvas stretching beyond our sight
and know we are meant to keep it this way
not alone but together hands woven in care.

so here’s my plea and may it reach beyond these words
let us be fierce protectors, tender keepers of air
let us be the breath that frees this earth from despair.

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Thapelo is winner of the Botswana Book Centre Scholarship, Tutume McConnell College, Institute of International Education Fellowship, University of New York, and Africa Guest Researcher Visitor Scholarship, Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden. Thapelo is also second runner-up winner of the 2017 and 2019 Share Botswana Tourism Fiction Awards. He is author of the Botswana historical novel Seasons of Thunder (2020), 2nd Edition (1445 pages), Omnibus volume, Ironmantle Books, Virginia, USA. 

In Botswana he has published poems, “Okavango Delta’’, in 36 Kisses and Other Stories: Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nascali Publishers, Gaborone (2018), and “Dry Heart’’, in Blue Train: Anthology of Botswana Writers, Nescali Publishers, Gaborone (2020). Thapelo has published several poems and short fiction in Petlwana: Journal of Creative Literature and the Arts, including the poems “Madness, Learns to Fly,” “Heretic Mountain” and “Lost in the Screen Light”, and the short story “Dry Season.”