Wherein Obscurely Poem by Gert Strydom

On a road near a place called Hotazel
there were no trees,
just the flat openness of the great Karoo
and semi-acrid no stream
crossed that big open plain
and in this flat desolate piece of land
I saw a man on a bicycle pedalling on obscurely
right into the distance
engulfed by the shivering heat
looking like plates of water
and some crows with white breasts
flew past croaking
and it was just a white-hot sun
in a blue open sky.

[Reference: Karoo: “a semi-desert plateau region in southern South Africa.”]