#SeasonalSonnets 2019: 31st December

Hello my lovely readers

Here is the last entry in this series for this year. However, rather than this being about the significance of the final day of December, my focus is on how it feels more like a mid-point than either an ending or a beginning.

And that message is most properly conveyed through the theme of music.

Tonight we're going to the Botanical Gardens at Kirstenbosch for their New Year's Eve concert. One of the bands featured is Freshlyground, who I've loved since I was a young teen, but have never seen live because I haven't made it home to SA for ages (as if I needed to say that one more time, hehe). I'm so thrilled - not least because this is their last gig as a group. The thought of getting to be even a small part of that bittersweet event fills me with joy. Their music has got me through some of the trickiest times in my life, and also provided the soundtrack for some of the most special, from the earlier sounds of Jika Jika and Nomvula right up to the most recent vibe of Can't Stop. It feels so apt that, at the end of a decade which has been characterised by difficult but determined physical and emotional recovery, I finally get to listen live, at home, and say, 'I did it!'. I got here, both literally and metaphorically - and I'm ready to move forward further.

I'm more grateful to this group of wonderful musicians than these waffly words can convey.

It's also been an honour to be here to witness the start of the lovely lead vocalist, Zolani Mahola's, solo career as a singer and storyteller. So this sonnet is a shout out to her too, as thanks for her cross-continental creative solidarity, our impromptu dance party a couple of weeks ago, and the reminder to be brave and bold in the tales we tell to the world.

31st December 2019

This poem celebrates the strength of song;

how music offers meaning to our life.

Both joy when things are right and help when wrong -

a soundtrack for our glee as much as strife.

Sometimes it is the wisdom in the words,

which touch a special chord within our souls,

and others, still, a beat or tune we've heard

prompts movement in our way (for me, a roll!).

And often, it's a blend of both of these,

where melody's a perfect match with lyrics,

that offers us such profound poetries

and lets the song find fusion in our spirits.

The latter kind's the work of Freshlyground

and I'll always be glad they've been around.

(My blog is refusing to embed a video from their official YouTube channel, so here's a link to my favourite of their newest songs, 'Makes Me Happy'.)