To Make Something Beautiful Poem by Gert Strydom

To make something beautiful, I write word upon word in the evenings
I am thinking here and there
sometimes are lost in my thoughts in a labyrinth,
while I am trying to find the way to the right words,
an answer to the problems of life.

Sometimes the curtains of my study rustle in the wind
and I know my country is full of violence and murder
but to the surroundings I keep myself blind,
to make something beautiful.

I write through the night without being disturbed,
sometimes stare into the darkness of the window facing north
and even when the ink of my pen later on tints my fingers
I am still searching for words like an innocent child
who is lost between varieties of ripe fruits in an orchard,
to make something beautiful.