Saturday, September 8, 2007

R390 – Steynsburg to Gariep Dam

Electric crucifications mark the horizon.
A windmill listens.
Silent fences lope the hills,
Racing the talking wires.

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.

A bird looms from the verge, lifting in its claws a perfect circle.
I am astonished.
A bicycle tire?

The eagle 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, head cocked, considers lunch.
It is etched there, full Spielberg frame, filling the sky.
And then I’m gone.

The chariot, 2.4 TDI, powered by Ahura Mazda, created in the month of Nissan, crosses the dam wall.
I survey The Two Lands:
This riven, hieratic, loving landscape,
And the inscape.

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

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