"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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offered as a possible panacea in the second stanza. Yet this itself presents an
“intolerable” situation where the speaker feels he must choose between the kinder
Christian love of the monastic priest and his rapacious instinctual passion to “love her to
a sticky death” (line 23). By the end of the poem, the tension is between freedom and
instinct: whether to “pitch” the bird (who is, metaphorically, “a beautiful woman” (line
14)) or to ravish her (line 23). In both cases reason is the catalyst: in line seven a
decision cannot be made but in the final line the speaker states that he has “the choice…
that choice”. The import is that reason, one crucial faculty which separates humankind
from the rest of nature, is the sticking point which precludes ecological balance.
A later poem “Bataleur” (AU 45) also juxtaposes humanity’s ‘threadbare’ reason
(line 23) with the majesty and instinctual knowledge of a bird of prey. The bataleur eagle
is shown to be victorious (line 31) and superior to humanity’s threadbare reason which
“gets by, just” (line 23). But, ironically, reason has given humankind the upper hand.
The final poem in Sjambok, “Elements” (60), comprises four sections. This uses
Empedocles’ ancient idea that the world or Earth is made up of the four elements of
earth, water, air and fire. The poem, as a whole, demonstrates a lack of ecological
synthesis because each element is treated separately, each being linked to a different
Bible story. Synthesis through love is explored in the final section “Water” through the
figure of Jesus Christ, who represents a commingling of divine and human love. Mary
Magdalene, as the speaker in this section, alludes to the paucity of human love:
… I know a salt
and selfless love no man has brought
and never another can earn…
(lines 33-35).
Michael Chapman correctly says: “Christ is depicted as the image of the perfect man
whose commanding presence had inspired his age” (1981: 36). Livingstone explores the
key role of humane love in attaining ecological symbiosis in A Rosary of Bone, but here
hints at the human inability to plumb the healing power of love.
There is a strong ecological element in “Air” in which the fig tree speaks of its
struggle with the elements and its resultant inability to bear fruit: “I had no figs” (line 7).
A search for synthesis is portrayed through the poet’s imagining of the tree’s awareness
of all the elements: there are allusions to water and earth, “I sucked on roots” (line 6); to
air, “I cannot feel the healing wind” (line 11); and to fire, “sparked in you to wreak the