R390 - Steynsburg to Gariep Dam

James Whyle

Electric crucifications mark the horizon.
A windmill listens.
Silent fences lope the hills,
Racing the talking wires to a destination,
A point, purpose, meaning.
Home.

A Gate. Edom. T.H. White.

A bush, not burning.

A casual corpse:
Flesh, fur, dark stain on tar.

The dam, a sheet of gleaming paint, burnt umber, reaching into blue hills, into
mountains receding.

A bird looms from the verge, carrying …

A bicycle tire?

It lands on a fence pole.

Its burden writhes, forked tongue searching freedom,
Eve’s friend, damned by a book, coiled in heraldic claws.

The raptor, wings spread, considers.

The chariot, 2.4 TDI, powered by Ahura Mazda, created in the month of Nissan,
crosses the wall.
I survey The Two Lands:
This subtle, hieratic, loving landscape,
And the other, inscape,
A country’s soul.

Ambassador to Kush and Great Zimbabwe, emissary of Ra, Consul of Nubia, Ally
of Ur and Sumer, friend, cousin, brother, uncle, husband, bewildered father,
Bearing gifts,
Reading the signs carefully,
I glide onto the N1 and race the charging neurons home.

LitNet: 14 March 2006

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