Morning and dusk with doves Poem by Charl-Pierre Naudé

The sky abounds with a-priori doves.
Wherever they go,
they've already been.
The day is like a dream
wriggling in the air
when plucked with one hand
from the flickering stream.
And, then, its glitter dims.

The houses on the ridge stand bleakly etched
in the early light like scale drawings.
And the sky abounds with a-priori doves
today, or maybe
it was yesterday.

By contrast,
post factum owls inhabit the night.
They take flight
and with their bromide brushes
paint the present tense brown -
the immediate act
discolours to rust.

Do you recall the footfall in the empty house?
"People of former times ..."
"Maybe just ours."

The light sifts through
the slat blinds and mounts your body
like the eye spots of a moth's wings,
in musical scales;
under summertime spray
the polkadot burgeons
in the bikini arbours.

Brimming like new preserve jars
are the dimensions, standing in a row.
The pristine planes ignite choirs
in the honeycombs
on the inclines;

and the ash crashes
in numbers.

They sky darkens with a-priori doves.
And all time is translucent
like a bicycle
against the light.

Translated by Charl-Pierre Naudé