Fig tree, do you remember the hands that planted, pruned,
and guided your white-fleshed limbs to the sun? That planter grandfather
who died before my birth, was he of short or tall stature? Were his hands like my hands,
the hands that are my father’s?
We are deep in summer, and I am amongst the sunbeams-flooded slender columns of our fig tree; I am reaching for the sweet-seeded yellowed fruits growing inches from the tips of my fingers. I pay no mind to the rough leaves and white sap sprouting itches and hives all over my body.
Father, when you are done and gone from this place, I will pluck a sapling from your father’s fig tree and plant it in my garden for my children to eat.
Tjizembua Tjikuzu is an essayist and poet from Okumu in the Aminuis constituency of Namibia. He is a graduate of Rutgers-Camden MFA in Creative Writing. He has poetry and essays published and forthcoming in Obsidian Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, Rigorous Magazine, Columbia: Journal of Literature and Art, Consequence Forum, Tint Journal, The Elevation Review, Barely South Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and more.