Lost In Rural Suburbia Poem by Gert Strydom

Streetlights flicker on at the end of day,
the day is gone,
I am on my way far too suddenly
with headlights on,
all around me many tall buildings rise
solid like stone
there are some busy people everywhere,
are always rushing, going here and there.

Coming is darkness of the early night,
some neon lights flash,
the large city does never really sleep,
some people dash
to be in time for dinner appointments,
heaps of old trash
line some of the long backward narrow streets
where whores and slimy characters meet.

No tranquillity is in this city,
I drive away
to somewhere in a old rural suburb,
the headlights play
over a very old graveyard with trees;
on no new day
all the kinsmen that sleep there will awake,
from the high palisade some old paint flake.

I stop across at a small grocery shop,
life I ponder,
were the lives of all those people fairer?
Here and yonder
they daily worked their farms and cornfields
and I wonder
about changing times, about rural bliss,
about how full of crime daily life now is.

This suburb has a own kind of gentleness
with big old trees,
teenagers in love not knowing about
flowers and bees;
I have got to rush to still shop in time,
some employees
are busy leaving, are on their way home
and I get a smile as the owner's welcome.