WINNING LETTER IN OPRAH'S "O" MAGAZINE

My winning letter of the month in the December 2005 issue of O magazine, Oprah Winfrey's magazine:

Jill Scott’s article [How an artist connects with her song - September 2005] did it for me. Maybe its because I went through same thoughts after I became a father.
Since birth, my son Ethan enjoys lying on me with an ear close to my chest.
I always wondered why? Maybe it felt like a cushion since I have a hairy chest, I thought. He is four years old now and recently I discovered how intently he listened to my chest. Before I could ask him (telepathy?) he answered by saying: "Daddy, I can hear your heart dancing. I Love listening to your heart."
I thought of Jill Scott who was certain the first thing she ever heard was the sound of her mother’s heart, a sure and unrelenting rhythm that was both life-sustaining and calming. She says she hears a symphony in the click-clack of heels on a pavement, the rat-tat-tat in the conversation of friends, the wind in her ears and the children at play.
The prophet Kahlil Gibran wrote: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. In a way I believe that this is exactly what happened when he listened to my heartbeat. As a poet I believe the heart is an instrument and a source of life’s longing for itself; it helps us to tune in to the beat of the world.
(Selwyn Milborrow)

I recently received an email from a reader in Belgium:

Dag,

(If my Flemish-Dutch is not readable, please tell me, i'll try to translate in English (my Afrikaans is not that good :-)

Onlangs waren we op business incentive-trip met een aantal collega's in het Krugerpark. De meeste zogenaamde collega's waren nog nooit in Afrika geweest en waren niet dermate geïnteresseerd, denk ik. Alhoewel een aantal van de organisatoren duidelijk wel neigen in de richting van "Africa Child". Ikzelf heb al wel ettelijke malen in Zuidelijk Afrika rondgereisd en voor een herinneringsdiner binnen enkele dagen, dacht ik: laat ik hun wat Zuid-Afrikaanse poëzie cadeau doen.

Zo belandde ik op http://www.litnet.co.za/ohttp://www.litnet.co.za , afdeling "poëzie": en... ongelooflijk mooi !

'k Heb dingen gekopiëerd, puur op toeval, van Selwyn Milborrow, Ronelda S. Kamfer en Angie Kleijn.
Ik hoop dat de collega's ervan kunnen genieten

Zou je hun kunnen verwittigen dat iemand in België ontzettend genoot ?
(En, wie weet, komt er nog iets van ?)

Met dank bij voorbaat,
Vriendelijke groeten,
Johan Putseys