it’s a round chapel-like gallery

baloyi built it with bare hands in the bush

with everything he could find

without begging or sulking

he built it with stones and bricks

and grass and reeds and weeds

he built it with grey tiles

and scraps of steel and corrugated iron

mirrors glint on the walls

wheel hubs have moulded the spherical windows

the floor is covered by patterned cowdung

the walls are painted with ochre and animal figures

baloyi bought a generator

he was tired of finding his way through fireflies, moon and stars

he bought a truck to collect twisted logs of mondo  

brought down by elephants in phafuri and makuleke

baloyi sat under the mango tree

carving drums with tails and legs

his darlings—kangaroos and camels

dolphins and shuddering beasts

carving and filing wingless birds that soared up in the skies

carving tindzhundzhu with breasts that glugged mud

carving a godzilla to guard the constitutional court in distant joburg

carving the foreign species that surround his dreams

albie sachs came to the opening of baloyi’s art gallery

how i wish he were the minister of arts and culture

he would buy and place these sculptures

in all of our public spaces

now baloyi has died and clouds are forming, rains are coming

water will pour through the leaking roof

ants will mottle the wood piece by piece

until it dissolves