Pear Tree Of Afrikaanerdom Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

This resemblance, it's resurrection.
is a pear tree of Afrikaanerdom.

You wake up eating pears, laughing here,
having jumped the fence into this farmyard.

Dutch houses speak volumes. Their faces do. Cracks agape, yes so agape
you can sticK your finger in them and
cause an apocalypse.

They say it is coming. These chimneys have
been looking at heaven for the Afrkaaner
did say, there was a secret he guards as he lays in his grave of hidden Kruger rands.

The tree is ours now. It is loyal to our
mouths, and not the Land Act.

This pear tree can swear we know how to
climb for its branches have seen our
undergarments. We have run away many
a time from the ghost of the farmer in the
grave.


Passing here in our pastimes we wonder
who lies abandoned to sleep in a Dutch house forever.

I hear the farmer sing
and swear aloud, while snoring
'the days are gone, so hear me out
with your eyes for see, I labored
for you and died of old age on the
wrong side of the color bar. This fence
guards me from perpetual trespassers like yyou young brakes of the law written so this land is mine.'

Yet we still eat the pears, till the tree
stands without one. For have to fulfill our mission.

Who can separate us from the love of pears, neither fence, nor time, nor dead farmer. For we have been deafneed and hardened by time under this pear tree of Afrikaanerdom.




Bathtubs, old abandoned lie full of grass.
Like chimneys, they look up the sky as if
to get even.

Fruits of the little free state, a rare
plant, like wattles and gum trees.

Childhood visit, mark out the pear tree,
as children wish they could grow on their
doorstep.







having borrowed