Finding Your God Poem by Gert Strydom

Finding Your God



After your father’s demise
you didn’t have a god
but you had to find one
or you’re writing of children’s stories
in the nether world of Toeka
(a place far away and long gone)
would come undone.

So we went to caves
to view Bushmen paintings
drove through Namaqualand
visiting quiver trees
to get a pincushion-type quiver
to fit your hunting arrows in
with which you wanted to hunt your god down
past Gifberg with its white poisonous daisies

right through the cruel sea
where only here and there
some clumps of hardy trees
grows defiantly against the Namib Desert
and carrying on through a raging sandstorm
with its suffocating warm wind

and you though that we
would surely find him at God’s finger
near Asab, where you believed
supernatural powers prevail
and the pillar of rock
with the narrow neck
pointing up into the heavens
just looked like erosion to me.

Further on near the Kuiseb River
you believed the canyon to be ablaze
as if your god was walking there
but still he was nowhere

and at Okaukuejo we went to the magic forest
of Moringa ovalifolia trees
and you were certain that now
we were drawing near
as these trees looked
as if they were flung out of paradise
landing upside down
where they were still growing

and at the Etosha pan
we saw a large herd of Oryx
drinking water
and couldn’t understand
how they lived in the desert
and you were sure
that your god
was sustaining them somehow
but still no other signs
of your god was seen

and we drove back to the Kalahari desert
where near the Orange river
we found a stretch of white sand
about nine kilometres long
right there in the normal red desert

and I went up a dune at the southern face
and while I walked
it made a strange sound
and it roared when I sailed down
and you where awe struck
at the voice of your god

and in the desert
with the roaring sand
you heard his voice
when you walked there

and I had to lock it
in preserved-fruit bottles
with lids welded together
and a tiny hole drilled through
and filled one jar with that white sand
and when sealed air tight
it looked like a huge egg timer

but its singing roared
into a humming sound
and your were sure
that your god
was captured and found
and from now on
you could hear his voice
whenever you wanted to.

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Gert Strydom

Gert Strydom

Johannesburg, South Africa
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