Flooding After The Last Summer Rains Poem by Gert Strydom

Flooding after the last summer rains
the river overreaches its banks
flushing through, shattering rural settlements
where squatters live in shantytowns

sweeping away dilapidated zinc plate shack-shelters,
women, children, some pets and chickens and goats
and everything goes drifting down like boats
tumbling, twisting and battered but vibrant

in the power of the flood, filled with energy
while death and destruction
is reining supreme
and uneducated, native man
is shocked, in great fear
and stays living at the water's edge.