Ghaap
Sonnets from the Northern Cape
by Michael Cope

Poetry

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

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2  Hill

Here are red sand, grass and thorns –

not as much glass

as some other places, but many many stones –

those

that endured this hot and cold hillside through

deep time.

Who

came here to cut a warm bed from

the bending grass, using this worked-off rock?

Who

lay under moon sky, having reaped,

and cast the stone aside

to lie exposed

while the stars shift their watches?

They used stones to cut grass beds.

They made stones

to cut warm beds.

The night is minus five.

Here is snake-skin, buck-spoor and shit of many animals.

In the morning,

two impala and a

pale anomalous reindeer

on the hill’s flank.

“Ja, dis ‘n takbok,” they say.

We drive the car away,

past the monkey-cage.

The baboons bark for banana.
                                             The dust is red.