Woman Of Mine Poem by Gert Strydom

For years in secret I longed for you,
thought and dreamt about you while I riding in a Ratel armoured-car,
while rifles and cannons fired in the eighties,
when the army took me to the border and Angola
and in the many years I saw you in other women
but kept wondering about how you really are.

Life did speed up with me
and no woman was truly the right you
but when I did loose everything and my life did fall to pieces,
when all of my dreams did disintegrate,
I was unemployed and without esteem
but in all of this I missed you throughout my life.

l'Envoi
Now that I do know you for years, I do know that I am really living,
you are like a wild-plum form my childhood that I do bite to the pit
where you do cling to my soul, my spirit, my mind and heart
it's as if parts of you do cling to my hands and to my life.

© Gert Strydom