I Dreamt That I Woke Up In France Today Poem by Gert Strydom

I dreamt that I woke up
in France today
and that every word
that I spoke in Afrikaans, English,
Dutch or the little German
that I knew
fell incomprehensible on unenquiring ears
just as if I wasn’t there at all
and the people were living
as if only the French
were welcome in France

I walked through the streets
at the Latin Quarter
and It was the country of liberty
and in the street foreign kids
erected barriers
and were burning cars
and wrecking shops
and attacked the passers by
and there were police everywhere.

The city of Paris was beautiful
and people where smiling
and it was very romantic,
but I wasn’t a part
of the city and the world
around me
and drifted in and out of it
as dreams go.

I said a prayer
at the Notre Dame cathedral
and looked in awe at the flying buttresses
and rose windows
and heard the Seine flow past.

I walked along the pont des artes
across the river Seine
and in the background
the lights on the Ilse de la citè
burnt bright and reflected
on the dark waters of the Seine.

Bright lights flared
from the Arc de Triomphe
and the Eiffel tower was all lit up
where it was like
A upside down
V-sign against the sky
and suddenly I felt free
from all the things
that bounded me.