A pastoral

          i. Cerberus

At the gate the dog:
and he doesn’t know the children
and he is jumping madly,
so the kids are freaked

but we say go quietly,
one-by-one, quietly,
and let yourself be smelled
and be known.

And it half works
– the dog is fine,
but the children go through
in jittering groups

like out-of-place spirits
in an underworld,
as though they would fly
but have nowhere to go.


          ii. Classical wind

In the wind up in the hills
above Kwanobuhle, Kariega,

my words are blown,
swung out of my mouth,

lost to mind and meaning,
flapped away from any intention:

this is my home, my countree
– where unlucky words

flit from me like the oaken leaves
of the Sibyl, ancient at Cumae.


          iii. Smell

Alert in nose
we come into the new place

seeking memories
of the familiar,

sifting out,
trying to ignore

till we find
al fresco here

home.


          iv. et in Arcadia ego

Out from Helenvale
amongst the hills

with cows, a tractor,
farmlands:

there’s no traffic,
shouting,

no brass band getting ready,
with the thump of a random drum,

a few blown notes scraping the air,
for the funeral

of the band-master’s wife:
there’s no fear, here,

just the quieter rhythms,
trees nodding in the breeze,

and grass bowing,
as my soul ducks and dives

back through Helenvale streets
and the grave images of your hood.

 
          v. Out here

We walk across the veld,
dodging the cows,
and across the dry river,

up through the woody stand
of Port Jackson Willow,
past the wild buddleja,
into the shrubveld of the big ants,
the tortoise, the caterpillars:

and the wind is always whipping
our dreams, blowing them
through the bushes, across the veld,
and out to those mountains
there, in rainland.


          vi. In words

In the group, photographers
– a big camera, cell phones –
and videographers in the making.

Out in the veld with the wind
blowing through our words
we walk amongst photographers

who capture us. But here
I catch them back in words
that click into focus.

 - Brian Walter