It Is A Pitch-Dark Night Poem by Gert Strydom

It is a pitch-dark night
as if sky is filled with tar
and just here and there I notice stars
and we cat-sneak around
in a dark enemy camp
right through some thorn trees.

The moon is not yet out
and I am freezing before
I pass through a bare open piece of veldt
and it’s as if the backpack
does not sit right
and the web belt is scraping against me.

Around us there are guards
that we have difficulty noticing
until one of them lights a cigarette

and the blue flame
does suddenly brighten his face
and he is just a few paces away
from where we are.

Suddenly we do notice
other guards, lights
and vehicles
that drives up and down

and when a light
suddenly is switched off in front of us
I can hear my own heart beating
in my ears

and we try
to melt
into the long grass

and are aware of a vehicle
that leaves a road and are driving into our direction
and we want to cock our weapons

but we are too near to
the enemy guards
and between two of them
when that vehicle
does drive up to them.

We leopard crawl
to the shelter of few bushes
to escape the light
of the vehicle
and we can swear
that they did notice us.

Carefully I draw the knife
out of my boot
and when the vehicle does stop
between the guards
we both we both cock our rifles
which we aim at the enemy.

One of the soldiers
who climbs out of the vehicle
walks right into our direction
and the lights of the vehicle
lets him look like an apparition
in the way
that he walks closer
and we both do know
that this is trouble.

The man gets still closer
and I can hear
his boots crunch
over the small bushes and sand
where he stops
between the two of us

and he has got to be a Cuban
as I smell a Havana cigar
on which he sucks enthusiastic
and the knife feels cold in my hand
while he does unbutton his pants
and he has got to be night blind
as he is not aware of us
while I smell the salty odour
of his urine.

It feels like an eternity
before he turns around
and talking in Spanish walks back
and the vehicle
does depart a while later.