Homage to Mkhulu

I can still hear them. The rumbling that vibrated through the reserve that dry evening in March. Their grief-filled moans. The agitated movements of their ears. Those big eyes fixed on me and me alone. My husband, Lawrence, always said there were things in this world that cannot be explained by reason, cannot be seen. Deep roots that connect all living things, humans and animals. It wasn’t until that night, two days after Lawrence died, that I truly understood.

This was a man who’d somehow charmed me into leaving my native France for an old Dutch farmhouse out on