Reflections on Grenfell Testimony Week

Personal Post

How was it they will ask…

And I won’t have words…
To express the totality.

The exquisite ceiling domed above
green tinged scenery.
But mostly,
the silence.

As the layers unfold
and the unbearableness
of love are told.

From Firdaws mesmeric angelic aliveness
To the unfathomable terror
of the El Wahabi 999 calls.
The awful way they died.

The layers of grief.
The Ever-extending.
Never-ending.
Ripples of pain
of lives unlived.

The anguish of the left behinds.
That beautiful
Community of intimacy,
of those whose hearts hurt.
Whose mouths speak.
So bravely.
The truth.

Mostly.

I.
Don’t.
Have.
Words.
For
the.
Silence.

You won’t hear that in clips.
You won’t see that in print.

The.
Total.
Silence.

Of our souls being shattered
And hearts expanded
To encompass
This awe full 
human unfolding.



How are you they will ask…

Fine.
It was hard.

I will say.
For their eyes would glaze
Over. If I told them
the truth.

I am changed.
I am born.
I am new,
Shattered into pieces.
I am broke.



Will it work they will ask…

Cynical furrowed brows.
The arguments
Of why it won’t.
Too close?

It’s too soon,
Too exclusive,
Not time.
For
Things like restorative justice.

They have no hearts.
They will say.
Those corporates
Those culpable
Those there.

But I saw their eyes,
I saw that tear.
Hidden behind clasped hands
And facades austere.

I heard the desire
For the visits at night
of those no longer here.
To call them to light. 

I’m torn too you see.

It’s easy.
To judge.
And assess.
From afar.

To spout the
Reasons and excuses.

But then you
did not
envelop.

This.
World.
Of.
Soul.
Shattering.
Silence.



Will it work,
I’m not sure…

But.
I’m a truth and reconcilled
South African - you see.

Born of bodies and death
And the evilist 
Of humanity.

And I keep reading.
Again, and Again

The words of Antjie Krog,
the journalist
who tried to make sense,
of her white Afrikaans heritage
Of the horror and unforgivable

The photograph of Joyce 
After waiting fifteen years
For him to come home
All that was left.
Was a bag of her son’s hair.

Antje says at the end,
Which,
somehow 

Breathes.
Me.
Hope.

‘because of you
this country no longer lies
between us but within

it breathes becalmed
after being wounded
in its wondrous throat

in the cradle of my skull
it sings, it ignites
my tongue, my inner ear, the cavity of heart
shudders towards the outline
 new in soft intimate clicks and gutturals

of my soul the retina learns to expand
daily because of a thousand stories

I was scorched

 a new skin

I am changed forever. I want to say:
  forgive me
 forgive me
 forgive me

you whom I have wronged, please
take me

with you.’

---

I attended Grenfell Testimony Week in a personal capacity and to support a friend who was giving testimony. As a former resident of Grenfell (2011 – 2014) and a resident in North Kensington I live on the edges of the ripples of the grief and pain of Grenfell. These reflections are entirely personal.

I wrote this to help me make sense of my experience and two dear friends wanted me to publish it, so I am.

I have not and don’t know that I ever will bring a professional lens to that week.

Antje Krog is the author of ‘Country of My Skull’. An account of South Africa’s Truth and Reconcilliation’s Commissions work using the testimonies of the oppressed and oppressors alike.  It is one of the hardest books I have ever read. The poem quoted above, is how she ends the book.

Joyce Mtimkulu‘s photograph holding some locks of her son’s hair are on the cover of the first edition of Country of My Skull.