Heinrich Poem by Gert Strydom

You and Werner play with little plastic men
and dinky toy cars, sometimes its war,
at other times you are heroes
who want to save the whole wide world,

or its karate on the computer,
where you have got to face each other
and no one spares the other,
when anyone looses there are tears flowing.

Later you lie stretched out on your bed
and at dusk
I cover you with a duvet
and if you had played outside

maybe had thrown a tennis ball to Jeanie
or had built paths and small dams
in the red-brown dust
I scrub your feet at nightfall in the bath

and then later you become a young man
who tries to catch the eyes of girls,
plays rugby at Craven week
fancying yourself rather too much.

My child, now that you are not mine anymore,
now that you have lost your innocence
and have to stand on your own feet,
I sometimes wonder
what is happening in your world?