The Ballade Of The Bushman Tka Poem by Gert Strydom

(after I. D. du Plessis)

For years there is great drought and famine
and almost the last of the wild antelope has died
where Tka lives as the last of the leopard clan
and to get drinking water the need is great.

Chorus:
Tka begs the Unkulunkulu
to send the thunderbird the Impundulu
out of the giant tamboti tree
and at the sky he stares hour after hour.

The last tsama runners has been scorched by the sun
while a dry desert wind howls over the dunes
and when the wind dies down and Tka finds a gemsbok spoor
it is with a hellish thirst that the Bushman struggles

but he follows the gemsbok track with his bow in his hand
while merciless the sun does burn down on him,
jogs to where he notices the wild animal in the distance,
on the other side of the big string of dunes

where he do slowly catwalk and steals upon the animal
from behind a small thorny bush and in his despair stalks
just a little nearer and lifts the bow and it sings the song of death
and in his thoughts he sees a herd of antelope that together do drink.

When the small arrow hits and pierces into the gemsbok-bull
it jumps and runs while it breaks away
and like a leopard Tka takes its track again,
trusts that the poison will break the heart of the antelope

and where the sun does burn merciless Tka keeps the track
the whole day he jogs scared of loosing the antelope
and at twilight the antelope falls down in its tracks
but from severe hunger and thirst Tka has no power left

where death does lose its way between the hunter and his prey,
only the tracks of the wind do wander in the desert sand
and in the wind the bow sings a last song
before Tka looks up into the sky and stops breathing.

[Reference:"Ballade van die laaste jagter" (Ballade of the last hunter)by I. D. du Plessis.Poet's note:The "Impundulu" is the thunderbird that lives in the upper branches of the great Tamboti tree, in the clouds where its nest is. This tree has interesting properties and connects the under-earthly (hell) , earth and heaven with each other.The "Unkulunkulu" is the omnipotent Lord God..A tsama "is a wild watermelon that in desert arias do give juice."A gemsbok is a antelope weighing about two hundred kilograms that inhabits the waterless regions of semi-desert arias.]

© Gert Strydom