and he wanted to play then we didn’t hear what he was saying
Matjama also Matjama also didn’t understand
white children’s language till he went to school
then we were apart till then we were
the same, the same then he went past us
then another baas said: Baas Willem is looking for you
there in Senekal at the café so I waited for him there
but I was scared I wouldn’t remember him properly
what I remembered well was the little scar
Matjama had a scar above his eye from the accident
when we were small then I saw a man standing there
and suddenly I said loud right behind him:
‘Hii, dumela Matjama!’ then I saw no, the man’s head jerked
then he laughed and then I saw the scar then he said
he was going to get married on a farm and I must come with him
we must stay together we must be together forever
so I came so we stayed together until today, this very day
I knew him like I knew myself when he came out of the house
I could see if he was tearful or cross but one thing
he didn’t like squabbles he looked away when there was fighting
and when he spoke then tears would fall from your eyes
in the farmyard I looked after the milking, sick calves, chickens
every year the henhouse was full of chicks that had to get ants to eat
pruning the trees the grapes laying drains and digging them open
I slaughtered sheep, cattle, pigs I can build with sandstone
ironstone bricks I can put in a ceiling wooden floors
I can put on a roof I can drive all the years I drove you to school
went to fetch flour if there was something I didn’t know how to do
I watched, I watched then I saw then I could do it
one thing that makes me unhappy
is that the work I can do doesn’t have any papers
I can do all these things but there are no papers to show it
now I’m not the Hendrik Sengapane Nakedi that I really am
I want to have some land a small piece I want to know: it’s mine this
is where I will stay this is where I will build to be in my own place
plant vegetables and trees apricot peach and a shade tree
Matjama’s mother taught me a person
must have a shade tree but one thing for sure: I won’t leave Matjama
I will only leave Matjama on the day that he dies or I
6.
live the myth
how unendingly dizzying the finality of the land-as-ours
bluegum-willow-poplar monograms of we-are-here
the evening stream warm with almond light and native
stars centuries of guinea fowl and plovers calling from the grasses
place that could always snap my skeleton into language
coil me into voices bore into my entrails
expose a certain wholeness of belonging as my deepest tongue
tear chorales and something like discord from my brain
across your yard at night I foraged soft-pawed intimately
overgrown with passions idols and revenge – blessedly
released for the night from the sandstone house’s lightfilled fist
but always you drew me back as my inheritance
whatever was done wrong here, land – never have you
sprouted under so much sublime being loved – your seeds
spread everywhere look up enraptured when they hear your name
until a flamescorch of longing slashes it to never-stubble
7.
the bushman
there’s a commotion in the yard the bakkie roars
Petrus gives chase on horseback
a bushman’s been trapped cutting a sheep’s
throat behind the bluegums
a little man with peppercorn hair
is locked up in the flour store
now the yard is crawling with bushman stories
including the one about Paul Delport
shot by a bushman while he was hunting at Turksvykop
he died afterwards from the poison
Oom must sort him out yourself with the stirrup-belt
the young constable tells Pa
it’s terrible for a bushman to be in a prison
they’re too wild to rehabilitate
everyone is shooed away from the yard
it’s quiet in the mulberry tree
the door is closed behind Pa and Hendrik
my ears are paralysed in the tree
a scuffle dull thuds on cement orders
finally flesh lashes and a cry
later in the open doorway Pa pulls his shirt straight
Hendrik has the bushman by the neck
get away from here Pa says don’t set
foot
