From Oblivion Poem by Gert Strydom

I did come into this world
as if a cancer does slowly, slowly eat away the remembering
and about the memories of my childhood days
there are but few things
that I can make concrete and bright
but sometimes I do remember the voice of my dad,
how full of love he had been
and how my childish hand fitted neatly
into his bigger coarse hand,
until on a day he did disappear into the earth,

about a broom that I did push against my head
and did fall with it and how that groove did cut into my hairline,
how I did make my face
blacker than the night with shoe-polish,

about the Portuguese people that called me bambino
and how they did give me Marie biscuits and all kinds of olives
but yet the great longing do remain
as in a way I can twist time
just for moments back.

© Gert Strydom