Four Young Men (A Reply To Ted Hughes) Poem by Gert Strydom

The old brown and white photograph
of my grandfather and his brothers
fading somewhat after more than a century
show four young men
with sincerity and patriotism
written all over their faces,
dressed in captured kaki war uniforms
belted across their hips
with farmer’s hats on their heads
and bandoliers crossed over their chests,
and captured bayoneted
Martini Henri rifles in their hands

and I know the big old teak tree
where they stand
and one looks at his cocky best, one sharp and aware,
one earnest and sincere and all three of them
almost exactly like some cousins of mine
with the middle one closing his eyes slightly
against the bright light
with a fringe protruding from under the hat
and he could have been me
and the similarity is very striking

and at only sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen
as brothers on horses they rode to war,
and alive they all came back, thread thin
from being without food in the veldt,
with missing skin from their hands
blisters turning into open wounds
from shooting with white hot gun barrels
at forces of outnumbering large
British enemy soldiers
all marksmen, snipers and hunters
but mere farm boys.

[Note: The photograph is of my grandfather Danie Brand and his brothers. Six young men by Ted Hughes.]