When I Drive Through Laingsburg Poem by Gert Strydom

When I drive through Laingsburg
I wonder why people build houses
in a water-basin,
but who expects
a big cloudburst
with rain pouring down
in the middle of the Karoo?

The word murder now jumps
out of the names of residential areas
and insurers talk about a act of God

as if Laingsburg
is like Sodom and Gomorra
where God let out His judgement

when a flood swept building, houses
and squatter’s shacks
away with its waters
and caused people to drown

and if I would think similar
only the righteous stayed alive,
but it’s nonsense
as a disaster stays a disaster
and here nobody
preached for conversion

and our incompetence
to grasp it
far too easily lies the guilt
on Him from who all good things comes.

[Reference: Laingsburg 25 January 1981.]