Lotus Land Poem by Gert Strydom

I.

There are no more oxen
to tread through the dust,
not even those of A.G. Visser
or Jan F.E. Cilliers
because they have died long ago
or are eaten
by Afrikaners as steak
and there’s no wagon
to be drawn,
because every chariot has its own power
and its own beauty too.


II.

Fast the kilometres rush past
and marsh and meadow
are driven through before sunrise
and if you leave at dawn
you can reach the Cape before dusk
and we are already living in a languid country
where the sauce train
comes and get many people
while the others
still have to pay tax.

Some sit without education in offices
passing the hours on their chairs
while they do not know how to work
or to do a task
and are just waiting for their wage
or to talk on the phone


III.

The rich get richer
while white men
that can work and have university education,
are jobless
and women now try to do their thing.

The ignorant becomes bosses
that only knows how to cringe
and by black economic empowerment
and affirmative action
uneducated get big salaries
while the country slides backwards.


IV.

Wanderers even come from other countries
and just where they can
they squat.

At every traffic light people stand and beg
and do not know
how to work
and with coins and rands
that everybody give in pity
this evil is strengthened.


V.

Caning is gone out of the schools
and most children do not know
respect anymore
and do not know how to learn
or to honour their parents
and I wonder what have become of my people
and where our country is going
and if everything is rushing to the end?

[References: “Lotus-Land” by A.G. Visser and “Die Ossewa” by Jan F.E. Celliers.]