All that you cant leave behind.

The wildfire started with a feverish passion, razed the maize fields and left everything dead in its wake. We couldnt fight it, but we tried and we got exhausted and perspired.

I had to travel to the wilderness. To give tributes and penance.

I had left the door ajar.

We prayed deep into the night and we asked of Him to counsel us. And we have been asking and begging for the rivers to flow again. Noone even begs anymore.

For a long time the clouds refused.

And last November we woke up to a trickle in the stream, and it started out gentle at first, but very soon there was a volume of flow. And then the rains came. Very hard.

The rain surprised everyone, even I was left aghast.

The fields rejoiced in multi-colours of glorious bloom. The flowers and the yellow roses.

Time heals it all.

Sometimes it feels like the prayers alone are not enough, yet our faith carries us through. And we are brave to it, to travel across the valley of skeletons with the remains of hope on our backs. We soldier on, without sight of the oasis in the distance.

And so we came back, we made it out of that desert and we are back to the crops and it feels like a great season of harvest is coming. The soil is moist, still. The gods have been good and most benevolent.

It feels like nothing is impossible.

And so that storm is over. The months have passed and the lightning is in the distance and far from the verandah. The fields are green, but winter may soon come.

We must not fear. Even when our biggest fear is losing it all.

And that’s how I used to feel at the start of it.