Ghaap
Sonnets from the Northern Cape
by Michael Cope

Poetry

Rain
GHAAP
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   Notes
Scenes & Visions
Some Examples of
       Silence
for the time being
Crossing the Desert
back view
Other Poems
Song Lyrics
A Virtual Anthology
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Cautionary Verses

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4   Canteen Koppie

After some child’s shiny stone
was set into a solitaire
men with moustaches headed north
and mined the hill into despair.
They passed the place through half-inch mesh
and cast the bigger stones to lie
in piles and pits that pocked the slope,
without, it seems, inquiring why
those rocks were shaped the way they were:
Amandelklip – the ancient tools
as big as spades, as old as pain,
as numerous as eland hair.
The gleaming gems and whiskered fools
are gone; the tools remain, again.