Gideon Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

Gideon, old prometheus-man,
in your curled age and frost-
lit eye this broken land
no longer quivers
in bonds of starlight and darkness.

I watch an autumn leaf
rock down gently
into his empty glass.
In stammers of his youth,
when bushfires threatened
the farmhouse, I remember
how his stallion plunged
and stung
the flames with his live flesh.

That sire’s line now
turn the plough
against the hill
where the impatient swallows
are gathering away.

Come, I say to him,
the light is failing.
Let us go in.
He does not hear.
Only smiles distantly and nods,
acknowledging the far
horizons of the land
his silence made,
that made his silence.