see how the man tries to fasten his pants
I see his torn shirt
I see him moving as if he’s forever of dust
an eddy a lightfooted jogtrot
he lifts his hand as if he’s greeting an idiocy
his feet spark the road
he arrows for the red grass horizons
not once does he look back
8.
pre-election chatter
‘will you get land after the election?’ ‘no, only those ones on the tv’
‘but you, if you get, will you give me a job?’ . . . ‘you know me
if I come and ask, what sort of job will you give me?’ ‘a job?’ ‘yes!
Petrus what will you let me do?’ ‘look after the sheep’ it’s out before
he can stop himself images of a flock of sheep with Pa on horseback
someone in the welding workshop snorts ‘no, the baas must do
something else!’ ‘milk!’ Pa with the hardest, most physically demanding
schedule on the farm ‘rather gardening, dig and water for
the madam’ uncomfortable laughter ‘Matjama wait, you can drive. I’ll say:
you, you’ve got permission to use my car, take me on
a little trip to the Cape, the veld is so beautiful this year’ uninhibited
shouts of laughter the young ones turn cartwheels suddenly
everything stops dead Pa comes out slowly from behind the tractor shakily
one by one they come to sit in the barn driveway as
if suddenly on the edge touching the impossible – until the guinea fowl
settle in the bluegums for the night
9.
like before
taking the Kroonstad/Viljoenskroon road like before
and nearer to the turnoff hearing how my wrists slip loose
how my skin quivers when I shift down to second gear
on the ribbon road to look to saunter all the way to
where the yard pages open into orchard, cattle, milk and stone
the flapping bands of geese and the brookwater fragrance of willows
before you walk in through the double front door – how friday-
housecleaning hums, polish and ironstone as without knocking I
walk up the stone passage towards the sound of you both
telling stories laughing clinking cups in their saucers – a vignette
at the big dining room table of an intimate accord
without fuss I slip into my usual place and the word
privilege doesn’t once occur to me as Ma pours
my coffee and tells me to sit up straight Pa
passes the green sugar bowl and the rusks and I share
carelessly depthlessly blushlessly in this ritual of love
oh, I long for my father and mother just as they were
there at the head of the table in the front seat of the car
chatting in the main bedroom and the world kept in order
by them wholewheatwholesome and indestructible
that’s how it felt I run in to you from behind place
my arms around your shoulders and walk in the warm
presence of your testy consciences walk songswarming as
I once walked out as your child, your white beneficiary child
across the yard’s wide expanse of lies because look
a host was under our heel a world
that bled: I carry with you that which now breaks
through a hedge of blood and vengeance bitterbred
10.
it’s him!
that’s Pa! my heart surges up in my throat but as I turn
the corner it’s an old black man
in a neatly darned Harris Tweed jacket like the one you’d
find in Pa’s winter trunk I walk behind him
and my eyes are glued to the too-big jacket shoulders:
what if this man was my father what if it was his fingers
fumbling with the plastic bag under his arm
what if my father was black and old and full of integrity
surrendering to his worn-out muscles
his polished shoes on their way to my mother exhausted
somewhere in an outside room actually I should
put my hand on his back and say: go well kgosi my
raven my beautiful kudu-head let me hold you tight because
you walk quietly like a staff flayed alone
as I turn away: my complicity unbearable. stuck
fast our present continues to die from our past
11.
fossilised tree trunk
a small stone here on your desk in Canadian mica light
a disk of fossilised trunk from a primeval obelisk you found
as you took your leave of the farm, its soil folding back into night
from glass-slimed clotting silt this stone gleam unwound
a disk of fossilised
