We Have Just Arrived Poem by Gert Strydom

We have just arrived
at the old big house
near to the cemetery
on the grounds of the private school.

The neighbours two houses down
have peacocks that spread their tail feathers
during the day and look pretty
and at night they scream oo-ha! Oo-ha!

Sometimes dad drives to the school
with his black car with the fins,
sometimes he walks with the dirt road
that meanders red-brown past the hillocks

and in the afternoons he does correcting of papers,
read poems at times early in the evening
he tells about Marco Polo and his journey
and causes me to want to explore the wide world

and then one day every thing is different,
dad has got to leave for the hospital,
and never comes back home
we have to leave the house
and move away to another one.