A precis of ‘The Grass is Singing’ by Doris Lessing

 

Dreaming at the Bus Stop.

      

It fills in the time and fills up the void

The hopes that we hold and the dreams that we feed.

So much we need love and attention and company

But the dream of eternal perfection - is myth...

 

I want to be faithful but I don’t want to move in

I need to be free - to just do my own thing…

I don’t know when I'll need you or when I'll be back

You'll just have to take it or leave me like that.

 

I just read a book about Rhodesian racism,

Colonial Using and Native Abusing -

A powerfully observant period piece.

 

They just couldn't know where real life was at -

Programmed out by religion and greed -

Religion has too much to answer for.

 

Condemned were the natives -

Dreaming seamless in the landscapes -

Condemned to endless hard labour, deprivation and pain.

Whites so self-deceived, egotistic and arrogant

But sanctioned by God - they believed.

 

The yellow hot heat was sullen and heavy

To exist in an oven - let your mind fly free.

She dreamed through the days of the heat –

In a tin hut - or bullied the boys in the fields.

 

Native boys cleaned and cooked -

Cowering and screamed at.

A knife out of place, they were fined, beaten or sacked.

Never respect nor a smile nor a ‘Thank You’…

They learned sullen indifference – silent - detached.

 

She'd never liked love - I suppose you'd say frigid.

She remembered her father smelled dreadful.

Her husband worked hard and was always exhausted

So they wasted their lives in denial and conflict.

 

He loved the land and cared for it well.

Permaculturist - before his time.

She had loved city life and she hated his land...

How did they get hitched in the first place?!

 

This need for companions on home lonely evenings

This dream of a marriage - propels us for acceptance.

This, like a forced marriage, without 'The KI' thumbs-up –

Is hasty and blind from the start.

 

The mission boys muscles and smell and politeness

Incensed her and drove her to dreams that enraged her

And so she went mad out there in the outback.

He killed her so cleanly and waited for justice.

 

The hanging accepted, due mission boy teaching -

They led him and hung him –

Though he could have walked free.

Then her husband went mad - Malaria doesn't help -

They never had that holiday, nor children,

Nor a cool hay roof on.

 

So now I am here, dreaming at the bus stop

Thinking of my daughter whose love-life is patchy -

A few hours of company, through years oh so lonely,

But I think of its honesty and know it’s a rarity.

 

Programmed and powerless and un-self-aware 

We still need the dreams that it’s still a possibility...

It's those dreams that help us go on in the emptiness

Hiding and sleeping blindly away.