Sleep Softly, My Love (Free Verse Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Breyten Breytenbach)

For days the rain fall as if it will never stop,
the wind jerks constantly in rage on all of the windows,
it is shivering-cold and wet and clouds of fog hang low
and still the doves coo constantly for each other outside
but you beautiful Helen, are cosily against me,
where all of the days and nights together become rapture,
wonderful Daleen, from wounds and poison I am free
where nobody wants to tear us apart while the rain does pour down,
you can sleep with tranquillity, my love, the earth gulps up the water,
where seeds outside do rise and fruit-trees do flower,
where a person wants to stop at the beauty of maize-fields,
while most of the rivers again do flow strong to the sea
and you are in my heart, my words, my spirit and flesh,
it's you that I do adore who knows how to be my darling and my wife.

[Reference:"in julle hoede" by (in your carefulness)by Breyten Breytenbach.]

© Gert Strydom