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| LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf. |
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Walking to the Paradise Gardens
Jonty Driver
im Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge
“No government can forgive.
“No commission can forgive.
“Only I can forgive. And I’m not ready yet.”
A witness
at the Truth & Reconciliation Commission
You let men ride over our heads
We went through fire and water
But you brought us out into a place of liberty
Psalm
66 v 11
Why stand we then in such jeopardy
Every hour of every waking day
Worse on those nights when intruders come
Crowding once again into our cells,
Grinning behind their masks, grimacing,
Shaking us from sleep? I tell you:
This was no black man; I could see
White skin between his gloves and the sleeves.
But the sergeant who caught me said, No,
This was our people, gangsters, bandits;
But I could see, I could see ...
Like throwing stones at the wind ...
Laughing, my tall friend in the front row -
At Fort Hare in Alice where the main game
Was debating, though with a sharp edge
Since the wrong words could send you to gaol
Or exile - signalled me to beware
That the question came from an informer
(Agent provocateur at the least ...)
And then for a time Robben Island -
That other great university -
Afterwards, making trouble in the courts,
Just one step ahead, using the tricks,
Slipping down the alleys and byways,
Playing the law like the lawyer he was.
They were waiting for him at the cross-roads,
In a big car, black, a Ford, he thought;
They had torches, four or five of them,
And waved him down, and he thought maybe
There’d been an accident, a roadblock.
He should have swerved then, or gone faster,
But they would have caught him anyway.
They had done with talking now, he saw.
First our friends were murdered, then their wives,
Then the witnesses sent out of town -
Somewhere, anywhere, who knows, who cares?
The point is that no one comes to judgement;
And if (since?) there is no God nor will they.
So many people, so many deaths:
And it shouldn’t be just those we know
Who matter; but it is our nature
(I guess) to care for those close to home.
What good does it do, telling the tale
Over and over again? Books get burned,
Words unlearned, the beggars coming to town.
I will tell you the story again, again.
Because that’s the way the world was made:
The lawyer come to such a lawless end -
But he fought back, using the knife he pulled
From his own chest, until someone slugged him
From behind. No passive victim this,
No acquiescence as the files trudged
Through the deep forests, with the guards
Only at distant ends. This one fought.
And he lost, one against four or five:
The white man and three or four hirelings,
Careless of death as the Gestapo.
Hacked, disembowelled, ears sliced off almost,
Disfigured - his blood made dirt of dust.
The lawyer’s wife too, because she
Would not keep her mouth shut, jabber, jabber:
I mean, we warned her, didn’t we, often enough?
Then we - in our turn - shut it for her.
And the horror of that execution
(Do you really want to hear the details?)
In a dark hut, with the children nearby,
And you may as well do the job properly
As the English say, penny and pound,
Or is it eggs broken for the omelette,
Or some image far, far worse than that?
What kind of man would shoot a child asleep,
Wrapped against the cruel cold in blankets?
It was Dirk Coetzee who cut my throat ...
And still, when I fall asleep, there comes
Such knocking at the door I must wake -
And there’s no one there; but he comes back
Knocking, knocking, though I’ve barred the door.
Have we grown so far beyond judgement?
Have we learned anything? Have we taught
Our neighbours? Much less our enemies?
What is done is done and, if they see still,
They will sing for their children, and cheer
Loudly with their friends and their comrades.
Sacrifice doesn’t need to make sense,
Doesn’t need a future. It is done
Because without hope there’s no point, no point
At all. We must all stand up sometimes.
I walk now, with sun on my face, to the uplands:
I am walking through the azaleas
Of Kirstenbosch as the low clouds lift.
I am walking on the pine-needle paths
Of the mountain contours above Tokai,
Up the stone-clad hillsides to the orchards
Of Pomerol, as bountiful as autumn.
I’m walking to the paradise gardens
High in the mountains above Shalimar
Beyond even the Gardens of Babylon.
Down in the valley there is Lake Nageem
Where the houseboats are moored at the jetties,
And the flower-sellers are drifting home.
LitNet: 14 February 2006
Back to Jonty Driver's poetry
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