Sabbath Of A Child Poem by Gert Strydom

(after D. J. Opperman)

My whole family and I
did pick corn-cobs

from our own field
and we carried them in our hands

and being hungry
our need was great.

At the old oak tree we stripped them
did heap up wood and coal

and cooked them in the old big three legged pot
on a jolly fired that smoked joyfully

while we rested
and did sate our hunger.

Later when we did arrive at the homestead
there were people from everywhere,

people from town and every rich neighbour
with a pastor as their leader

to point us the way out of scripture
with some impudent and headstrong

who broke down our house to its last bricks
and what was left they wanted to set alight

and totally out of control
they wanted to convert us back to the day of God

until a stranger opened the Book
to where the disciples of God did stretch out their hands to the wheat,

at a distance the Lamb stood waiting
and the visitors did not even notice His presence.

[Reference: "Sondag van ‘n kind" (Sunday of a child) by D. J. Opperman.]