Charl JF Cilliers Poems

Nearby you see him in air
cavorting in twistings of light

that part of him that you share
...

No longer is there a train
that goes steaming by
and yet I still see the red coals glowing
against the morning sky.
...

They grow
in the depths
of a sea’s glow,
the hugeness
...

I would turn the prow
to where it found the wind
rushing to fill the sails
with a shudder beneath my feet
...

It’s mid-September in Namaqualand.

After the rains the stones take root
and blossom from the hills down to the streams.
...

A leaf is green and splendid in the spring.
Full of life, its image leaps into our eyes.

Yet pale are all its colours when it’s living
...

Across the lake like a desperate cry
I’d catapult the smoothest stone
that I could find and watch it fly
high into the air to hover there alone.
...

Autumn confirms
the less-than-perfect
as the most endearing,
as chaste reluctance
...

It is autumn and the cold is setting in
and still you must journey on

no longer do waves
...