An Old Legend Poem by Gert Strydom

One day I pass
a place where cliffs
gnashes into the sky
and an old legend
comes alive with me.

In the distance
I hear a child’s cry,
calling in vain to be rescued
and the pain cuts past all reason.

At a rock ledge a child had fallen
and was crushed,
and laid in rock pinchers
without having a way out

Nobody could get over that
slippery rocks,
to get to help him
without also falling down.

No strong rawhide thongs
could descent at that place
and nobody could
get him out of there.

At that place
a father’s hart broke into pieces
and the agony and pain of the child,
went like a knife
through him.

There he had to sacrifice his son
without getting any redemption
and while tears streamed down his cheeks,
a single accurate shot resounds.

That shot still echoes
and the child lay lifeless
and nothing can take the pain,
from a fathers heart.