Rondavels and Flats

Imagine:
August.  A winter-light,
Blue-bright day.
The first swallows, old friends,
Swoop a greeting over this 
Dislocated stranger.


Mama Alice takes my pale hand 
In her careful brown one, and
We walk.


Here - the ramshackle hen-house.
There - the piecemeal cattle-shed.
Past the patch where the
Stiff-dead mealie stalks
Lurch in drunken ranks.
Round the rondavel, where the ancestors live;
Through the flat houses 
Where the occasional grandchildren
Come, and stay, and go.


The wary dogs wag their uncertain tails
And the geese, the BLOODY GEESE,
Honk in utter disbelief.


But Mama holds me in her great black embrace,
Sweeps a hand to the horizon and says:


'Wherever you are, 
Anywhere in the world,
THIS is your home.'


Love comes in the most unexpected places, and often takes us utterly by surprise.