As streetlights begin stroking the sky’s underbelly

It hurt to be reminded that modernity was no less brutal than the Iliad. That bombs could still (did still!) grind apartment buildings to cocaine-smoothness. That the screams, the maiming, the hunger, the death could leave so many people either indifferent — or grimly joyous. The adhan cries out from a microphone a couple suburbs over. Louder than traffic. A wail, obligatory yet wavering, soothing in its demands. Words unknown but sounding familiar. Words no different to the wails I heard in childhood. The dusk is busier now. Teeming with movement, wind, echo, miscreant pollutants, flatulent regret. The traffic is harder to ignore. You can wait for the others to pass you on their way down or you can insist they are the ones doing the waiting. I climb a mountain and fall into grace, held aloft by dawn and fynbos-pricked air. I want certainty like I used to crave beer at four pm. Obliteration isn’t the only option, though, and collapse can crack the heart space open. Surrender doesn’t necessarily mean defeat; the greatest triumphs, as it happens, flow from the headwaters of acceptance. To breathe. To live in the penumbra where conviction meets doubt. To stare at death like it’s a run-over puppy. To love the living as much as you love what is lost. There is a shimmering no louder than a whisper. Don’t listen to it: hold it and hand it back instead. The adhan has finished. The traffic continues – haphazard, groaning. Later, grief will be an ellipsis, pinpricks of anguish that surprise you with how bearable they are. Don’t see that as betrayal. Some endings are there to be lived through. Some endings are signposts pointing to the way beyond.