Cape Town Burning

Cape Town is burning

The fire rages within

My heart cries with the flames

leaping over our memories

Memories embedded

in the landscape of our youth

blossoming adulthood

I'm grasping at the smoking sounds

Sounds of curiosity

where knowledge meets intellect meets reading

into lines of texts and subtexts

Jammie steps meeting Jagger library

Libraries of our lives

The chapters and passages and volumes

That danced over Cape Town

Dancing still through waves of connection

Connecting to the sights

that cloud our eyes

Table Mountain bellowing in its cloth

Spread wide a canopy of love

Love that knows no bounds

We reach across oceans

in prayers and gratitude

For Cape Town mother soil

The soil of toil

Of all we worked toward

When campus burned

And where to run

Running round the slopes of Rhodes

And changing names

The winds set light

To all we need to see

The sight of fires raging

In our hearts and minds

Cape Town you burn so strong within

The passion of our souls

Solely Cape Town we will never leave you

We'll lift each fragment of our past

To paint together from the ashes

An archive of the future

A future that will heal and blend

The colours leaping

Lapping gently wholly now

The oceans of our time as one

© Clare Dembovsky

My love of Cape Town. My love of UCT. As student. As performer. As lecturer. As conference speaker. Cape Town we are with you, always, no matter where we are in the world.

This content has been published with no editorial intervention from UCT News.