Fluttering In A Strong Breeze (Swannet) Poem by Gert Strydom

Fluttering in a strong breeze, the Union Jack,
rising on ridge after rock ridge.
They saw Boers, as peasants that eat porridge,
while British soldiers came under attack,

carted women and children by force,
to concentration camps, places of killing,
exterminating a quarter of a nation;
they buried them, in bone and skull.

The atrocities after a hundred years
the inhumanity comes fresh to mind, still lives on
the actions of these deeds are never gone
and the impact, the loss, the pain and tears.

Fluttering in a strong breeze, the Union Jack,
while British soldiers came under attack.

[Poet's note:This poem is written in remembrance of the twenty thousand (some figures are as
high as thirty five thousand)innocent white Afrikaner women and children that died in British
concentration camps, after their farms were scorched by the British in the Anglo-Boer war in
South Africa, which includes a great grandmother of mine. For a clear picture of these atrocities
read my epic poem "Through the eyes of a field coronet" which is based on the eyewitness
account of field coronet JJ Potgieter.]