This Ancient Act (Le Senzo Sak’dala) This ancient act It connects me to the wood — to this gift from the soil It brings my focus to its fibres, and how they almost match my own It seems to prompt me, to know more than I see To outstretch my hand — to feel intuitively Through this ancient act We borrow from one another Forming relics of our encounters A constant reckoning with the earth As we tear, tend, mend, till, build, transmute and uproot For this ancient act My forbears would say a prayer Grateful for an enabling substrate of imagination With intention and care, an organic geometry emerges And from the earth, the walls of our homes encircle I yearn for this ancient act For my relationship with you was interrupted Your teachings replaced and progress encumbered Your motives disgraced My ties to you severed Yet this ancient act It seems to hold time Creating a connection to periods outside my own existence Making time less finite And making its boundaries less clearly defined Rooted now in this ancient act We reintroduce ourselves, and make our return Back to the ground from which we were formed Seeking newness from what we once knew With a collective spirit, creating a context and culture anew