John The Baptist At The River Jordan Poem by Gert Strydom

I see them standing in their best clothes as holy people
at the market square, the threshing-floor and the well
hitting with their fists proudly on their breasts,
even where rich old men doze off at the city gate

as if they want to shout, that they are children of Abraham
are saved as his descendants,
are free from their lineage but as a brood of vipers
they rise around me with love missing from their hearts
where they only wait for a moment,

are waiting to strike and backward to rob, plunder
and they think that they are saved
and where I am baptising
they stand and gossip backwardly,
are coming with questions set as traps

and I wonder if I have to walk up to them,
have got to drive them away
and have to rub in their sins
in front of the people, the city, the whole world?