Farm-Boy (Free Verse Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Bernard Odendaal)

At the stream next to the marsh weavers fly up and down,
frolic the morning yellow and red and twitter-sing,
my dog keeps running up and down in the grass-veldt,
every broken-winged plover remains an unreachable thing
and long-tailed widow birds slap their wings where they hang,
the beautiful new pellet air rifle is only for hunting pheasants
where in the stream I catch breams and carps
on another glorious sunny hot day
lemon- and turtle-doves flutter down everywhere around me,
my catapult can cause any dove to drop out of the sky
and for every stone that sings away my heart hurts
but suddenly in the distance I hear the dull bang of a.22 rifle,
in the hillocks near to me there are baboons that scold,
in a while Eben, Lanz or Gardiël will tell me about that shot.

[Reference:"Jangroentjie" (Johnny-green)by Bernard Odendaal.]