Poetry by Jana van Niekerk

       Stephen A Wolfe CC




Thorn in my flesh


There she goes, talking about God again.
Not the God who beat me
but the God of my Stigmata.
There she goes,
walking down the Via Dolorosa
of my heart
singing fifty years
of dancing out my door.
Though she had a spear in her side
and Mother Mary came to me,
Jesus I
could not have had it harder.

​

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Handiwork


In a terrible place, I did some praying.

Bear Crow came to me
They said,
use your hands to make things
at times it’s everything.

I did some mending
I felt your spirit
your loyalty in word and deed.

I did some drawing
this creatura, a guardian
said
you please me
I am listening.
To the language of your heart.

How do I speak hard things softly,
I asked
when I look good but I am not?

I did some writing. I said

I do respect the things your hands have made.
I will come to you clean, with straight eyes.

It answered:

Our vision is one.

We walk the same river,
crying.

You are
good
as an entire forest.

​

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​Jana van Niekerk is a South African writer living in Cape Town. She first published in high school, where she won a national prize for the best creative essay in her final exam. She has worked as an addictions counsellor, an actress and a copywriter. Her short stories and poems can be the found in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, A Hudson View, New Contrast, Stanzas, Aerodrome and Kotaz and in collections such as For the Duration (Botsotso 2015) and The Garden of the Beloved (the 2021 McGregor Poetry Festival Anthology). She has released children’s books and romance novellas under different names, and has a first novel in press. Handiwork was written in response to an automatic drawing done on the back of a postcard.