Everything Is Still Written In My Own Remembering Poem by Gert Strydom

At Carp's dam near old Boschoek I will never again catch bream
as over that good man's life the sun has long ago set

but the joy and pleasure are pinned down in memories of my childhood days
of people who share everything with others and truly know God

and still the cries of baboons echo there far away over the sugar-bush hillocks,
in memory at dusk I still do take my brother by his hand,

while I get the smell of a pot of crumbly-porridge from the Von Hörsten's small fire,
and it's as if the beautiful woof of those almost forgotten days still do remain,

when I hear the cooing of doves when falcons turn high up in the blue,
and I smell lightning and rain as the wind blows after every thunderstorm.

The days of tears, pain, laughter and great happiness
leaves on the pages of my heart a eternal impression

and although the alfalfa and maize fields are now full of weeds and grass,
with the horses, Frisian cows and donkeys those fields always are my thoughts

and even though everything that at a time had been a farm is scorched under the sun,
I remain fascinated with those childhood days right through my life,

and I feel the hot red-brown sand and the cool morning dew,
as everything is still written in my own remembering.

© Gert Strydom