GRAVES ON AN AFRICAN FARM Poem by Cecil Helman

Just beside the barbed wire fence. At the end of that long dusty, reddish path. Like a vein of terracotta. Past the acre of prickly pears, netted against monkey thieves. Past rows of orange and pear trees, plum and peach. Past the little herb garden, the two small ponds with their thirty white, waddling geese. Up past the broken-down tractor, the water pump, the half-empty reservoir. Six abandoned graves. Of African farm workers, someone says. Among the high waving grass, six broad lines of stones. No gravestones, just a rock, unmarked, placed at one end. Nearby, in the warm Magaliesberg winds, a long line of bluegum trees sway and sigh. Like mourners.