Page 197 - Tributaries Catalogue

Salt Pans, Memories & The Water

Pilgrimage: An Image

“An early image from my childhood is the night-
time view from my grandmother’s balcony. The

house is located on the upper flank of Hillside
which grants it a view of the lower adjacent

neighbourhoods, important centres of the city,
main roads, highway junctions, and also the

trees and bushes peppered throughout, the
alleyways, cul-de-sacs and small streets uniting

this concrete matrix, and all the little poems
glistening this side of Port Elizabeth. The image
in question is a paste-up of the street-lights –

ambers, yellows, whites, and uncanny alloys –

which illuminate the salt pans of Salt Lake,
Bethelsdorp. These manifest in various blues,
hues, oranges, pinks, and perhaps, peaches.

Memories, like colours, can be vague.
“Illumination” isn’t the most fitting word,

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