Anthem: the possibility of evolution and the evolution of possibility

Words sketch images on the air.
Voice sets them on fire. I am
mostly water: performance is
extinguished in me,
I absorb it.

I watch traditions foot stamping
the grammar of indlamu, kiba, mohobelo
dancing themselves back to divinity
and a heavy flood
bursts between the chambers of my heart
bright red
vital

systole diastole
systole diastole
systole diastole
systole

Which is the echo? Which is the original?

dublup dublup

double up
brain short circuits
takes a short cut
across centuries

I am alive:
my heart as big as this fist and I
as little as this finger. We are all connected,
the living and the dead.
We arrive in life and then it
walks away from us;
leaving our bones behind,
our minds are as infinite as the universe.
Human evolution began in this corner of the earth:
our ancestors left their dust as chromosomes
in each of us, they made a home,
and hominids stood up as humans and walked
languages fell out of our mouths and talked, walked their way
into and out of landscapes, mindscapes. We walk in words, creating as we need:
we stand shadow-thin
and then
we chase the horizon disappearing
until we reappear again.

Miracles exist. Victims become heroes:
a man with no legs is the fastest runner in the world.
a woman who cannot walk swims to golden glory.
Our brains are two halves, reflecting duality,
a system of pairs of opposites like an on-off switch:
black white right wrong man woman night day
Caster Semenya the intersex athlete is
an invitation
to consider the end of two-way thinking. A provocation
to refine our definition of what it means to be human
or woman. A conundrum. What to do with her?
We have been dropped in a hard land
where we don’t understand, we’ve never been here before
but this is what the future looks like. We have to learn
the words to the song of our uniqueness.
Miracles exist, we carve them out of our own bodies,
we hammer them out of stone and copper,
we weave them out of dreams:
For what the world does not contain
our minds create a home, we are making this world,
this world that has no borders because it does not exist,
except in our minds, until we take the time
to make the world again.

We are alive,
our hearts as big as our fists and we
as little as our fingers. We are all connected
the living and the dead, and our minds are infinite
as the universe.