Childhood:Sedaven, Heidelberg, Transvaal (Free Verse Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

A long dusty meandering path brings me to the dam
where I walk in and do open a female crab at the bottom,
find a lot of small pink ones that crawl over my hand
and go and sit against the trunk of a shading tree.
Up in the hillocks I find almost the whole of creation:
night-adders, cobras, rock rabbits, steenbok and chacma baboons
but all of this pleases me as a wild playful child
where I kill the snakes and take a stand against the baboons,
do ingeniously drive them away from our peach orchard
where they strip the trees and do not even eat a tenth
but do climb back into the wild reserve with a chattering quarrel
and little did the danger of which I knew bother me
while my catapult did protect me like a angel's sword
when I went into the wilderness (into the garden of Eden.)

© Gert Strydom