Poem By Malika Ndlovu
In the second year of well-plotted demolition, excavation, concrete and steel erection
Amidst expected 6 am-to-pm six-days-a-week drone of construction, ominously hovering cranes
The full-colour glossy property developer billboards are now familiar, firmly in place
Plastered with designer interior décor and ecstatic would-be tenants faces
Painfully incongruous to the violating vibrations of the earth penetrated and pounded
The long-time residents’ personal boundaries invaded, assaulted, hounded
Still swaying between the scaffolding, caged beyond haphazard corrugated iron fence
That haunts our nights as it violently flaps, bangs, scratches and squeals in the wind. Four defiant equidistant pine trees, stubborn green soldiers slowly losing the war
Until this sudden Thursday, some suited architect far from the suffocating dust and grind
Or perhaps a rougher more hands-on booted, helmeted engineer took the decision
They no longer suit the aesthetic, affect the uniformity or impact on a newly-made plot division
Instead of the usual dawn- rupturing tractor engine, its incessant reverse -warning beeps
Or the hollering of weathered black men in a mish-mash of overalls gathering in waves from townships
Or distant leafier-suburb-well-fed white men arriving in 4 x 4 bakkies to inspect, give the working orders
The searing sound of the chain saw in full swing, while we who watched those trees grow from saplings
Could do nothing to save them, speak of their significance to our children, their right to grow, to exist
Soon, the daily airborne cement, gravel, truck exhaust fumes are surpassed by clouds of fresh sawdust
A strapped –in goggled man positioned between their open branches and a strategically parked truck
Catching their falling limbs, trembling green needles and unceremoniously aborted cones
None of these men have a clue as to what they have robbed us of and neither do they care
We who have lived here for decades, birthed our children in these homes, loved and grieved here
Feel the unquiet encroachment, the far-from- subtle-eviction that began with generic notifications
Stuffed into the mouths of our postboxes lining this once family-friendly street, we must adapt or leave
We have already watched the mountain and sky disappear with each apartment floor they accomplish
There will be twelve they tell us. No community protest or passionate efforts at heritage preservation
Rose loud or high enough to be truly heard, since municipal paperwork has already been negotiated
Manipulated within the legal loopholes, between the bosses of officials and capital beneficiaries
We do not fall comfortably, if at all, into any of these black and white bloodless categories
All we have are photographs of what once was, stumped, just like the last of Eden’s breathing trees.
