Experiences During War Poem by Gert Strydom

I

When this evening comes between us
and outside the rainstorm fall pattering,
with thunder reporting like cannon shot
let tranquillity find us then

and let us go away from the world in this holy hour
with joy and peace and endless longing
and let the suffering and pain disappear,
let us then take the best out of this short time

and let our lives come past the turning-point
while the war for others goes on
and even if we are wordless
let our bodies meet in flesh and blood,
let we find some internal joy
before we have to greet each other again.


II

Before we have to greet each other again,
when the alarm clock reaches eleven o’clock,
I know that this might be the last time together
while I have got to go to Waterkloof military airfield.

In the distance lightning bolts come down exploding,
when you dropp me at the gates to parachute into enemy territory,
to go back to Angola,
in a region where the enemy swarms about like a nest of wasps.

Scouts have to do target acquisition for howitzer guns,
for the heavy artillery that shoot over many miles,
in the distance the aircraft waits with its bat shape
and some fear is in my stomach while the gate guard calls an officer.

Later I breathe through a mask, with equipment strapped to me,
here one feels rather like a machine than a human being.

III

Here one feels rather like a machine than a human being
when day after day you are with the same people,
have to do the same duties,
cursing your live

on the border at times,
while you receive parcels that you do not expect or deserve,
while the relationship with your girlfriend changes to a big maybe
and then you want to be somewhere, just somewhere different

from here, when everything fades to nothing,
with life dragging past day by day
and even when we go into action,
it’s as if I am especially daring my life
and every day I pull a line through the calendar,
every day I count off the days to go back home.


IV

Every day I count off the days to go back home,
while with Casspirs and Ratels the border is protected
and days just go on and on,
while resistance is changed to submissiveness

and somewhere at a ovambo village
where farm goats walk around loose,
I see sparks spatter out of a campfire
while our armoured vehicles drive nearer

with machineguns and cannons aimed threatening,
we are searching for enemies that plant landmines,
while the lives of people are disrupted
and somewhere chickens are crowing at the back of the huts

while tired and stiff we climb down,
when a soldier is killed and drifts in a nearby stream.

V

When a soldier is killed and drifts in a nearby stream,
his eyes could see no butterflies,
not even look up to God, whom he tried to serve,
he couldn’t stretch a hand out of his powerless body,

he will never write another word to his darling
and this killing he did not deserve,
was maybe at the wrong place,
a target to enemy soldiers,

he is not aware about things around him,
or where righteousness, truth and the search for light lies,
he was forced to be a soldier by laws,
forced to make an offering without any meaning to it,
he would have wanted things differently,
in the darkness he had lost his way far too early.

VI

In the darkness he had lost his way far too early,
although he is already a man and still unfulfilled,
he is waiting on the helicopter to come and pick them up
and he is now full of impatience.

In front of him soldiers string out on patrol,
through the dry country-side where the bushes leave scratches,
as they are going to where the sidetrack joins the main road,
while sweat flows in tracks over his face,

when he suddenly and unexpectedly triggers a landmine,
his life disappears in moments on a spot of blood,
when the explosion full of shrapnel goes off without mercy,
there are sand and the smell of blood everywhere around him

and all his hope, his future and life disappears beneath a cloud of thunder;
when the hammer and sickle appears with a big red star.

VII

When the hammer and sickle appears with a big red star,
and from the east the bear growls with great power,
when fingers of enemy terrorists and soldiers are twisted
around the triggers of rifles, some did experienced pain

others were happy as if a new sun were shining on them,
the armoured wagon beneath me had filled the enemy with fear,
where I was forced to fight for survival,
in walls of steel before civilization did disappear

but although we had won the war,
the hell later came to its full maturity,
for others an earthly heaven waited, while calamity was with us
and the blood and sacrifices
now count nothing and I am astonished,
when this evening comes between us.