I’m contemplating the patterns under my feet on an Nguni skin next to my bed, thinking about the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem:Glory be to God for dappled things- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings …I love the words: dappled, brindled, stippled, studded, mottled, spattered, freckled and I wonder what Hopkins would have made of this pattern. I own five Nguni. In Zulu terms if they were flesh and blood, this would make me a very wealthy woman. Each Nguni is differently and distinctly patterned. I...