NARRATIVE OF THE CATTLE FARMER Poem by Antjie Krog

Uncle Jacobus de Wet talks in poems
‘near Jerusalem there are mountains
here alone with the goats in the veld
there are also mountains
but God is all around us
I feel him approaching all evening from the direction of Akkediskloof (Lizard Canyon)

my grandchild Benjamin does the herding
he told me so himself this morning
even said he wanted to be a cattle farmer
and I'm content
God has given everyone a talent
in the evenings in the pasture we don't have to talk
we know which have been pastured and which have yet to be pastured
it's a good life to give a child
every child has his honour
let me just say this
it is very pleasant to be with a grandchild
he makes you laugh
he lets you talk about things that aren't really relevant
it's good to be with a child

because you're alone here day and night in the pasture with Jesus
you talk
you can lie back
and with clear eyes talk to him
you only have to look
because flesh notices flesh

the river lies defenceless
open vein in the heat
the landscape unthinkable without that brown-green cut
indestructible older than the oldest human breath on stone
he feeds the goats whether they live or die
there isn't much of nothing here
there's much too little of nothing here
the mountain on the other side looks as if it's leaking
at midday it is extinguished in blue

I look at the watch
it's twenty to three
and that means absolutely nothing
we doze between coolness and eating and heat

the sun sinks at last
the ridges echo with blaring as the big goats come in to pasture
the lambs are tied up and pulling at their tethers
nothing as soft as goat's lamb
(my language remembers)
nothing so sweet snouty
sweet to the mouth defenceless-looking as goat's lamb
towards evening
some get their mother's tit some get a strange tit
from full blaring to flat blaring to lost blaring
to muffled blaring to whining blaring to spoiled blaring
to irritated bossy blaring

the satin of a lamb's ear
slips through my hand
‘how do I tie my line to you my love
when the late light strikes stone'

a colour never comes alone she says
when the ridges float and fall in blue folds of satin

the pleated mountains turn to fire
and amber
the river stills into reflecting streaks of jelly
it's feeling time and flying time
in the violence of colour and reeds
a heron flies silently through the valley
redbreast fly-catchers, tufted ducks, seed eaters
bunched in tassels on the grassy bank by my tent
the mountain hides its stone in the water

there's a shivering of stone and river willows and reeds
frightened by sound a dove falls from the crag

I sleep on the bank of The River
the whole day it flows past me quiet and broad like blood
from a wound - above me lie the chippings of stars
the night opens itself -
soon colour loses its original way