Ndaba Sibanda
Her figure was fatigued, seeking a freshness, her face tearful, her voice drowned in emotion, her heart hurt, bleeding, she spoke at length of unspoken words, restless and riotous wounds, of unmentionable and untold stories and worries that tell of telling and revealing aches, ailments concealments, developments and silly silences. As she set out on her journey to reinvention, she told untold stories of daily damages by virtue of day-to-day disagreements and bouts with him that resulted in hideous hurts in her heart ‘n’ soul, of her wakefulness and her foolish flashes of weakness, of friends whose friendship is unfriendly and fraudulent, of family whose familial love is unloving and far-fetched. She had lost her personification of peace and love, disheartened, disappearing, was Hleziphi`s heart, a hurting human haunted by heavy hits unleashed by foolery, foibles, falseness, family, friends and fiends, she sought solace in the wilderness, a forest which is home to a diverse population of land-dwelling floras and faunas, there she prayed for the planet, for peace and the soul of love. She spoke about nature's cares, fondles and fragrances, how it was her oasis of sanguinity, serenity and sanity, how it was her shelter of peace, perfection and power, how it hugged her heart with healing, hope and happiness, how the leaves lulled, listened to her and with their freshness brushed her body and blessed it with a cute calm, how tiny trees washed away her tears and never accused her of being a cry baby. As her mind migrated, wintered and summered in a sanctuary, she confessed she frequented the forest to confess the unconfessed confessions, to say the unsayable, to speak the unspeakable, to heal and hear the unheard reprimands and revelations, heave a sigh of love, she frequented the forest to bond with its greenness, songs and scents, and to turn the pages of old habits that sought happiness in remoteness, yet joy was to be harvested and hewn in her head, heart and lovely loneness.
Sibanda is a Bulawayo-born poet, novelist and nonfiction writer who has authored twenty-eight published books of various genres and persuasions and coauthored more than 100 published books. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in Page & Spine, Piker Press, SCARLET LEAF REVIEW, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review, Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine, The Borfski Press, East Coast Literary Review and Whispering Prairie Press. Sibanda has received the following nominations: the national arts merit awards (NAMA), the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, the Best of the Net Prose and the Pushcart Prize.
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