Old Woman Brewing - Dorian Haarhoff

in war days she moved
as heady matriarch
on powder plains,
under an airforce sky.
she mapped her way
among the trees
her grandson climbed for her
to shake the seed
for her windswept shebeen.
when war evaporated like rain,
she soaked the camouflage fruit
of the makalani palm
and funneled steam through stem,
decanting from clay pots
into old containers,
discarded by the army.
still she sits in roadside sun
fermenting in sweat,
and brews red-berried beer.
the illegal glint in her eye
shines like bottled fire.

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Dorian Haarhoff (born 1944) Namibia
Source: Badilisha Poetry