The Dam Poem by Gert Strydom

I went to the dam to see it secrets
where it was surrounded by some hillocks,
overfull after some good rain
with water pouring over one side.
There were dragon-flies darting over its shiny surface
some small birds did land to drink water,
I found crabs, at their bottom, full of small ones
some coots swimming with their young
and I wanted to catch all kinds of fish,
there were carps, kurpers and catfish,
sometimes a yellow-fish or two
and accustomed to English boys being
from the city and spoiled,
Robert who came from Rhodesia
was a great surprise and from a farm
making him a boy like me with the same interests
and he had given me self-made sinkers and some bended hooks
which made my hands burn to go fishing.

I was nine and very happy to be right there
with all of my fishing-gear.
The three black girls higher up at the stream
did beguile me.
I came across them while above the dam
I was following the stream,
were searching under the rotten leaves
for earthworms and crickets and later
were looking for tadpoles
higher up where it still did flow slow.

I was dressed only in short pants
and wet from diving in the stream
with a bottle full of tadpoles in my hand
when I found a black girl totally naked
in the water with me
and two others also without clothes
was drying themselves by the sun on a rock.

Wordless, astounded and fascinated
we stared at each other
and never having seen any girl like this
I stood there as if frozen looking at them
until the one in the river saw the tadpoles,
asked smiling about them
and there was no shyness to them
even from being without clothes

but the dam was far better
with earthworms for bait
that could catch almost any fish
where a yellow-fish almost walked on the water
as it did jump and did fight
all the way to the shore
and the catfish were twisting
to and thro and dragging the line down
where I had a small fire of my own
on which the blue kurpers did sizzle
on the glowing hot coals.

© Gert Strydom