LITMIR.BIZ

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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 on my farm again

      I 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

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