On A Military Lookout Tower Poem by Gert Strydom

I saw him peering
into the early evening,
watching the setting sun
on a lookout tower
behind a huge machinegun

and below us there was a bevy of activity:
soldiers walking around, military vehicles
driving to and fro, helicopters landing
and departing to and from missions

but we had tranquillity, that machine-gunner and I
and he talked to me, about another world
just behind the rim of the sky,
one where people did not deceive, lie to each other
or die, from the war
and I wanted to hear more
as at that moment
life wasn't the same as before.