Africa Child Poem by Gert Strydom

You stay in one
of a group of shacks
on the other side
of the cleared borderline
where bleating goats
are eating
leaves from the thorn bushes.

You run inquisitive past
some pecking chickens
and your large brown and white eyes
are watching me,
when I take the LMG with the other hand
and get some hot water
out of a green water bottle.

Your hands are dirty caked with mud
and you wear a dirty white t-shirt
and tattered torn pants,
but there’s a smile
that spread past your ears
when I give an energy bar
and a dogbiscuit to you.

You push a car built from wire
along my boot tracts
and talk in your own language
as far as we go
and there’s wonder
in your big eyes,
when I take the catapult from you
and shoot the bird
which you are aiming at for some time,
with one shot
out of the sky.

You bring the bird to me
and I indicate
that you must take it
and you are still happier
and just before
I leave with my troops,
you pick up a stick
and point at the bush
before you draw your finger
across your throat.

I still hear your childish laughter
and see you disappear in the distance,
while we walk with another route
circling around those bushes.

Later another military patrol
detonated some landmines there
and there where no child,
to walk with them
and it was only
another forsaken native village.