Hook, Line and Sinker

For Fatima Meer: sociologist, anti-apartheid activist, friend and biographer of Nelson Mandela, who taught me the most valuable lesson of my life during a tutorial in 1965

She played us like a tiger fish—
We hardly felt the hook at all,
leaping out of the water,
ecstatically, as she gave us line.

Sitting serenely in her sari
she suggested that we accept
that it is the colder climates
which produce superior civilizations.

She let us run with it a while
and then started to wind us in
from our false sense of security,
whites wallowing in certainty.

She talked of Mesopotamia,
Mexico, Egypt and India
so carefully, so clearly,
that we didn’t notice how close

we were to the boat and gaff.
Just as Madiba* had his gaolers,
she dropped us on the deck in a flash
gently removing the hook.

She threw us back over the side
to struggle in the raging rapids
as she and her friend, Nelson,
swam strongly against the current.

She died just over a year ago
but the scar of her fishing hook
remains on my…