Ballade Of The Thorn Tree Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Totius)

Only as a sprout the tree was totally treaded down
when the whole British Empire did walk over my Afrikaner Boer nation,
the nation was mangled and that sprout almost broken-off
out of the deadly concentration camps women and children could not escape

Chorus:
but after that war my people, that tree, did heal by itself
did out of own resin as pioneers bring about farms, towns, cities, mines and factories,
did lay out infra-structure and did build schools, universities and hospitals
gigantic big that tree did become and with its scars did astound the world

but dark forces out of Africa, Cuba and Russia wanted to break the branches
when every white Afrikaner citizen was forced to march in soldier boots,
to go into war on the border and in Angola and in Africa to stand indelible,
with branches that reach the heaven the tree did pierce every intruder

and when peace came the traitor was disguised as the best fruit of the tree,
where affirmative action and unemployment came down like a hellish thunderbolt,
where my people as a mere minority was shown away and oppressed
where the sprouts of the tree across the world do by themselves come up

and systematically the tree is shaken in to its own roots where it still stands
where murder, rape, torture, plundering and robbery is normal to the day
where everything do slowly dilapidate under awkward lack of skill
and where the tree reaches to the sky the scars to it do only multiply.

[Reference:"Vergewe en vergeet"(Forgive and forget)by Totius.]

© Gert Strydom