In Remembrance Of You On The Beach At Balito Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Philip Larkin)

1
You were like that girl that laughs in the poster,
with eyes that look right through a person's soul,
who says come to sunny Diaz-beach in Mossel Bay

Where you knelt a minute small cute dog
struggled over the sand to come to you
with him in your hands stretched out arms lifted your breasts,
being the focus-point
but a endless white beach
flowed from your thighs to the horizon
with the foaming sea touching your toes
and behind you a hotel with palm trees and the sea
that looks like paradise.

2
That smile that lure and glitters can swallow a man
but of you I have got a much deeper impression:

the beauty of your face and your nose that retroussé wrinkles with a frown,
your glance that speechless made my heart to beat faster,

your blonde braided hair hanging past your shoulders,
the soft red blush of each womanly cheek,

how your voice like an evening-breeze has magic,
your lips that tempt asking for more kisses,

you are more soft, kind and friendly than anyone that I know
and it's things that to eternity I cannot forget,

where your curves remind me of Aphrodite coming out of the sea,
as a fairy, a girl and a woman you kept me speechless,

as a tigress against any other one protected and claimed me,
you were true to whatever destiny demanded.

My love you still leave me speechless
and what I am writing will make others blush.

3
That summer stretched out almost endlessly
and I was convinced that you are mine in any time and place,
did know your character to its depth,
with you did loose everything and also did win
but destiny had drawn its line with a virus through all of this,
did too suddenly and unexpected change life to be upside-down
and now only parts of you are disguised in my memory
where you are missing from each day's endless scope
and I was convinced that you are mine in any time and place.
[Poet's note: "Come to sunny Prestatyn" by Philip Larkin.]
© Gert Strydom