Gert Strydom Poems

You come while the summer-rain falls,
do carry parcels and magazines in your hands,
near to you a lightning bolt comes down,
in alarm everything falls to the ground.
...

Packed with sour-sweet fruit,
heavy hangs the branches of the plum tree,
the smell is both sweet and bitter,
and bees and beetles buzz around
...

In the kitchen's window
your potted violets are flowering again,
they are feathering with miniature florets
on the luxurious green leaves,
...

In the setting sun in the mellow twilight,
when the day its brilliance the sky denies,
you walked smiling right into my sight
with eyes in which your heart openly lies,
...

It was a hot and clear open sunny summer day,
as if sent from up high from beyond earthly skies
on your face a ray like a token from heaven lay,
as if we were both like Adam and Eve in paradise,
...

A butterfly flutters past your face,
for a moment lands on a ruby-red rose
and I wonder about the love between you and me:
is it also so fragile and brittle?
...

(after William Shakespeare)

When I notice how your own flowers grow
do wither and wilt after just a mere moment
...

(after Vincent van der Westhuizen)

For you this morning I wanted to do something radical,
I wanted to take you far away from your work and our home,
...