In Dry Namaqualand Poem by Gert Strydom

In dry Namaqualand, in the stretched out paradise,
there are pretty flowers showing their faces
that rise after the first rain in that semi-desert,
appearing for days long in colourful splendour
when the sun shines over the hillocks.

Early in the morning tourists come when the sun is out
when wild flowers year after year sprout again,
to leave in their busses in the late afternoon
in dry Namaqualand,

in this way farmers are visited without any sign of respect
are trampled upon by every jolly John with a vehicle license
and later the visitors become a pain
while the local farmers wish for the flowers to languish away
rather than to have to point them out
in dry Namaqualand.