The Okavango Delta is a place where the soul is brought to peace, a reminder of the Eden of our past. It is often misunderstood, even by the people that have lived there for many years and claim to know it intimately. I have marvelled at the beauty but will never claim to know all its secrets as this will make me arrogant and will have nothing to look forward too.
With the arrival of the annual flood some islands are lost to our view for the period that the water prohibits us to gain access. These islands continue to play out the dramas as they have for centuries.
Lost in the horizon, forgotten for a time, dramas played out undisturbed, an entity in a paradise state.
With the drying, a revealing, a manuscript of stories, of life, passings and death
a record of the wilderness lost to us in the season
Moments pass by unnoticed, but if you stay a while the stories will begin to be told. You can listen and learn of yourself or you can turn away in irritation.
The Okavango area is flat. There are no hills or mountains to give perspective. The horizon is broken by the tree line on the edges of the islands.
Perfect reflections, reflecting the heat and the stilled breeze, reflecting time, and timelessness
A delicately rippled reflection, reflecting a rumour, a rumour of a breeze
There are no hills
to frame the sky
no valleys to echo
the voices of the past
the echoes of the past
are heard in the silence
and the horizons lie
beyond the treeline
By Leigh Kemp