Ghaap
Sonnets from the Northern Cape
by Michael Cope

Poetry

Rain
GHAAP
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       Silence
for the time being
Crossing the Desert
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2   Boxes

These are tools of ancient people, made of older stone –

Those are points and these are cleavers, that broke marrowbone.

This cut meat and that cut grass –

Honour each one as you pass. Nothing else is known.

Here are axes in their boxes, lying in a row:

Each one has a little number, written neatly, so.

Nod to them as you go past –

Well-made things that really last. Now you’ve seen them, go.

Remember all the stony axes – only they endure.

When and why, whose fingers held them? Nobody is sure.

Big hands formed those old stone axes,

Drove no cars and paid no taxes, were not rich or poor –

Muscled minds behind the axes,

Not confined in cardboard boxes, limpid and obscure.