Ballade Of The Hippopotamus-Hole Poem by Gert Strydom

(after C. M. van den Heever)

At the policemen of the lines the fishermen do stare,
under a gazebo they are protected from the sting of the sun
where they do keep looking down into the dark-blue pool
and do experience another bright sunny day in conversation

Chorus:
but suddenly a water snake does wriggle
where a cloud of dust hangs over the water-pool
when a lightning-bolt do cut thundering down to below
while the natives nearby do long for escape.

Where the river has flowed for centuries
below in the pool it does foam, there is something glowing,
when every rod does bend, the lines powerfully are drawn to below,
when the waves do splash and lap and a golden thing is wrestling

where a gigantic snake does twist on the water-surface.
"Escape from the water-snake, " the natives scream
and astonished the fishermen stand with bended rods
when a thick fog-curtain do surround them suddenly

grey and black clouds do cover the sky
lightning comes thundering down at place after place
where the fishermen are trying to catch the wriggling thing
and a terrible shower of rain pours down

but the lines break when a hellish blue-white lightning-bolt bashing out,
even the steel feeding-line is melted by the power of the beast
where it wriggles, do whirl into the sky while it flees into a curtain of fog
and it disappears into the sky and the fishermen are lame from shock and powerless.

[Reference:"Oor die seek'gat" (Over the hippopotamus-hole)by C. M. van den Heever.]

© Gert Strydom