---

and colours customary, Dakalo is a dazzling star.

A pretty princess of proficiency and tongues

and visions, she speaks six national languages.

Her fingers are the fine stylists of wall designs

fashioned with multicoloured earth pigments.

Her homestead has painted prominent walls

whose ingenuity draws in diverse spectators.

Dakalo is a joyful, proud poetess, songstress,

traditional dancer who hails from Beitbridge.

Dakalo means joy in Venda or Tshivenda, as

a lady she greets with aa and I boom with ndaa!

She carols and performs in Tshivenda, Koisan,

Sotho,Xhosa and TjiKalanga with stirring fluency.

I am a wordless, confessed, happy hearer, stalker, fan

and pupil of her soulful traditional songs and poetry.

Since her poetry has smiles as wide as similes of gaiety,

its metaphors are vibrant, vivid showers of wit and magic.

Her poetry is an Afrocentric dish of literary depth 

and a devotion to her grace, voice, logo and legacy.

It rolls and roars with soft but solid reflections, 

rich ricochets, creations, descriptions and emotions.

Her folkloric poetry offers imaginative possibilities

that dance with one into a decorous, delicious trance.

Every term she tames, touches, carves and couriers

is a delicacy and a candidate for defining and refining.

---

Ndaba Sibanda is an author  of 32 published books of different genres, sizes and persuasions. He is a three-time Pushcart prize nominee and a Best of Net nominee.  Sibanda is the author of Cabinet Meetings, The Immigrant With A Difference, Notes, Themes, Things And Other Things, The Gushungo Way, Sleeping Rivers, Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing, Football of Fools, Cutting-edge Cache, Of the Saliva and the Tongue, When Inspiration Sings In Silence, The Way Forward, Sometimes Seasons Come With Unseasonal Harvests, As If They Minded: The Loudness Of Whispers, This Cannot Be Happening :Speaking Truth To Power, The Dangers  Of Child Marriages: Billions Of Dollars Lost In Earnings And Human Capital, The Ndaba Jamela and Collections and Poetry Pharmacy. His work is featured in The Anthology House, in The New Shoots Anthology, and in The Van Gogh Anthology, and A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in  Page & Spine,  Peeking Cat, Piker Press , SCARLET LEAF REVIEW , Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review ,Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, Indian Review, Eunoia Review, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine,  The Borfski Press, Snippets, East Coast Literary Review, Random Poem Tree, festival-of-language and Whispering Prairie Press. Sibanda has received the following nominations: the national arts merit awards (NAMA), 2016 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, The Best of the Net Prose and the Pushcart Prize.