a poem and a thought for Nelson Mandela....

Late Ripeness 

Not soon, as late as the approach
of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me
and I entered
the clarity of early morning. 

One after another my former
lives were departing,
like ships, together with
their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens,
the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better
than they were before. 

~ Czeslaw Milosz


Madiba:

May the departing of your earlier lives carry away your sorrows and leave you only peace. May the door you must walk through open onto calm seas. May the people who have loved you find the strength and the grace to let you go. And may you know how much you have done for humanity and how much we needed you, in your time.

bars of steel....

Nelson Mandela sculpture by Marco Cianfanelli. KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

In 2012, this sculpture by artist Marco Cianfanelli was erected to mark the 50th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's arrest by the apartheid police. It is situated at the spot where he was apprehended, known now as the Nelson Mandela Capture Site. From a distance, it resembles a small forest of black, a copse of steel. But when approached from the right angle, at the right distance, it resolves into an image of Mandela.

A face rendered in bars of steel; no longer seen between or behind them.

The approach ("the long walk") to the sculpture.

Mandela sculpture by Marco Cianfanelli, unresolved.

Mandela sculpture by Marco Cianfanelli, viewed from the proper perspective.

All photos are by Scotch Macaskill ~ http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/nelson-mandela-sculpture.html.