Namibian Sequences Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

FIRST DAY

SUNRISE

The sky is empty of clouds:
over the vast sands
comes the snow of sunlight.

MORNING
The morning is so quiet:
only the breeze
of a leaf falling on the sand.

The traveller seeks some sign
or sound in this world
the wind keeps shifting around.

Momentary morning stones lie
still upon the sand: the eye
watches the wind suck them in.

The night wind carved
these statues of sand
that melt in the sunlight.

NOON

An insect draws a tremor
in the sand: windless
and shadowless the thorn trees stand.

The sun prowls fiercely
amongst stones: my shadow
is thin enough to be sucked away.

AFTERNOON
People move,
dwarfed by distance: I,
too, dwarf-like, wander aimlessly.

The thorn tree leans towards the river.
If there is a river
in this endless land.

Oasis of the eye:
single sentinel:
this broken water-pump.

SUNSET
A river of light runs
over the edge of the world:
I can taste darkness in my mouth.

NIGHT

The moon pelts the sand
with drops of light:
soon stars are raining down.

I sit in darkness
on a stone: far off two dogs bark:
silence and darkness are one.

SECOND DAY

SUNRISE

The morning is a mist of dust:
at first light, flames
lick at the branches of the trees.

Colours melt in the grey distance:
a car emerges, a tiny speck
drawing threads of colour in its wake.

MORNING

On the desert shore the waves come in:
across the distant oceans of the mind
cloud-birds drift on the wind.

Many have passed by here.
There is no track
or trace. No one has ever seen this place.

I have not heard a bird sing.
The morning seems fearful of sound.
I sit watching the sameness changing.

One is only born this moment.
No past to explore,
yet one has been here before.

If I close my eyes the world will change.
I look again
at the sameness that seems so strange.

NOON

Flies fester on the cobbles.
Stones buzz and crack
and splatter into the air.

Body-searches in the shops.
Soldiers in the street.
Death leans against a lamppost in the heat.

Rivers lie dying in the sun.
Pumps cough up phlegm in their old age.
This land was made for desolation and for rage.

EVENING
Now is a changing silence:
no echo of yesterday:
the wind blows around my feet.

NIGHT

Ribs of sand under the moon:
many lie buried
beneath the broken dunes.

Nothing is what being is or was:
the sun has set beyond the reason
darkness has no reason to explain.