In The Sun, Joy And Pain Of All My Summers (Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(for Annelize, after D. J. Opperman)

My girlfriend is gardenia, jasmine and lavender,
sometimes she is a rose and rosemary
and I find her in the sun, joy and pain of all my summers,
in a sun-baked bunch of grapes,

even in my winters my heart does not want to let her go,
even when the sun's last rays do disappear behind drizzling fog
she still does twilight into my consciousness
and I have got to love her at whatever cost.

When yellow-gold grapes do taste delightful
it does take me back to summer-days in the vineyards at Helderberg
where her lips was sweeter than cherry,
even in my later years where the leaves are getting coloured,
eternally her beauty en humanity do dwarf other women
and every bunch of grapes does hold a bit of her essence

[Reference: "Sproeireën" (Sprinkling-rain)by D. J. Opperman.]