‘Plain Brotherhood’ (Oil painting on board, by Alan Rayner, 1999).
Silver and gold strands of rain and sunlight are strung, harp-wise, from the sinewy, strong legs to bass clef wing plumes of a male
ostrich with negligee of black belly feathers. Black-backed, pink-palmed, male hands, modelled on my hands, emerge like primary feathers
from white coverts and fiery secondary feathers in the wings of crowned cranes, mutually supporting each other’s one-legged stance. The
hands stretch out to pluck the harp strings. Wet season gives way to dry, across a sinuous path on which two warriors stand one-legged,
spear-supported to left or right, vigilant yet content and open-handed in the generosity of their unconditional love. Swallowtail
butterflies link darkness and light from giraffes to zebras. Acacias transform stems to leaves. An egg cracks open, perpendicular to the
hatching plane to reveal – what? This is where I came from.
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