Written piece
Inside the Thread
Phodiso Modirwa
Botswana
About this piece
The submission is an affirmation of the richness of our histories and our indigenous/local knowledges. It echoes the sentiment that we have everything we need for our unity to thrive.
Inside the Thread
And inside this thread are stories
Cartographer’s maps drawn intricately
To be consulted like gods in years to come
I, daughter of lands far and near walk into the thread
Head bowed in reverence as one at the entrance of a shrine
At the altar I burn incense and pour a song to the ground
I ask the thread to bare its hands and on them I see
veins of histories both colourful and grim
I hear songs of struggle and triumph
I see threads within threads flowing like blood
Carrying with each fibre a language here
A way of living there
A ritual and practice intricate
like the winnowing basket’s threads
I have come to inquire of things
I know my ancestors knew before time
Things that have gotten lost where the thread frayed
I ask for the manuals of forgotten ways-
Hot to make rain
How to heal the land and her children
Womb-work
How to hold life sacred and usher it into the world
Rituals around blood
The first, what to do when it comes
What to do when it stops, that very sap of life
The songs to sing when night comes and threatens to stay
The ways to make room for joy in all her tongues
How to gather ourselves from all the places of our capture
How to return to ourselves over and over again
With each answer the thread ropes itself thick
Vitality loud in its veins
It meanders like a river at the seams of our connections
And by it we are a quilt of colourful nations like that coat
What a sight to behold, what a sight
And what a gift the knowledges within us
By which we are strengthened