The Suricate (Free Verse Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

Straight-backed upright the suricate sits on the anthill and watches the world
with small sharp eyes it's cut fine where it looks at the sky and ground,
as life can in one single moment totally stop,
an eagle can dive down or a predator could hunt where the others do dig
but nothing moves on the plain or is to be seen in the sky,
it's only heat waves that in the summer-sun do tremble
and the watcher looks ahead, to and thro and back again
where everything around him is living in abundance.
He becomes aware of a caracal sneaking nearer in the grass and do shrill,
in all direction to holes suricates do scatter
but then the veldt and everything is suddenly deadly silent
and forward on soft paws the sly cat sneaks
while every suricate waits deep down in the burrows,
while a babbler high up in a tree laughs at the world.

© Gert Strydom