GHAAP - Sonnets from the Northern Cape

Ghaap
Sonnets from the Northern Cape
by Michael Cope

1 Site

Kathu Townlands is big – you couldn’t walk all over it

in a day. It lies where two roads meet, the tar to town

and the dust to the racecourse. There is no sign or gate

to mark its presence. Dry horizon. Thorn shrubs hunch down

among sparse pale grass. The silences are short: vehicles

murmur past intermittently bringing dust and the gaze of fat men

who slow down to inspect as they drive by. The rhythmical

thud of a far machine. Insect sounds. The machine again.

The Townlands field was mined for gravel, the top stripped,

the rest ripped through – a claw on the back of a caterpillar track

to loosen it up. Next the scoops that lift the yield into hard trucks.

When they were stopped the ground lay fallow, weed crept back

and low thorns came after rain. Pull over if you ever pass,

and walk in that field: there is a vast mirror among the grass.