When I Was A Child Poem by Gert Strydom

When I was a child
I saw fireflies,
fly passing secretly at night.

The world was full of wonderful things
and there were trees
with bird nests and eggs
of white and pink and blue
and with spots on them.

I could shoot a true shot with my kettie
and the blue fishing rod
took carp, blue kurper, yellowfish
and catfish from streams.

Doves or fish fillets
from glowing wood embers,
tasted delicious
and the world was a great place.

At the marsh plovers jumped up and down
and like wounded birds, as if with a broken wing
tried to entice you away from their nests

Aloe and protea bushes were all over the kopjes
and prickly pear, wild peach, mispil and stamvrugte
were everywhere on the ridges.

The world of a child faded away with time.
But when I went back as a adult;
a highway runs right through the hillocks
and there are houses where there was marsh
and the streams are full of rubbish and litter
and I see how progress has destroyed nature.