Gert Strydom, 14 november 2014
We sleep together
with your stomach and breasts
touching my back,
later stomach to stomach
with your arms wrapped
around my body
and in the morning
you enjoy a plate with fried eggs,
toast and tea in bed
and bright-eyed reserve
some sweet kisses for me.
Gert Strydom, 13 november 2014
Woken by the black-collard barbet
knocking on the window
as a token from the gods
like a acolyte dedicated to your service
I rise to prepare breakfast
consisting of toasted chicken mayonnaise sandwiches,
some squeezed orange juice
and the tender relaxed serenity
fills your face with a kind of dignity,
a kind of uncommon grace
and when you look up at me
I see a warm pleasant welcome
almost like the rising sun
displayed on your face
and your slender arms
reach out to me
drawing me down
to soft sheets and a hot pillow
and to you.
Gert Strydom, 12 november 2014
The flames in the fireplace make tongues
and you and I dance slowly
while candles burn intimately
and make long shadows
and your eyes gleam and are large,
you do look innocent
and it feels as if the whole wide world
lies open before us
and I feel the artery
beating in your neck,
your perfume fills my nose
and there is something deep
that I read in your eyes.
Outside the branches of the avocado tree
are beating on the roof
and time is busy
getting its own wings
but inside we are dancing
as if we are free from everything.
Gert Strydom, 11 november 2014
After making love your skin glows
and your have energy
as if something is living in you
with fire in your eyes
and the room cools down,
while darkness is sheltering us
and outside the rain falls
as without end
and while you sleep
in the moonlight I trace the lines
of your face
and I feel you breathing against me.
Gert Strydom, 10 november 2014
At three o’clock in the afternoon
Peter and John were on their way to the temple
at the time that prayers were being said
and a man that had been born lame
was laid down to beg
at the entrance of the temple
and they just wanted to enter
when the man asked for a contribution.
Together Peter and John said:
“Look at us”
and expecting some money from them
the lame man looked at them.
Peter said to him: “I do not have
any silver or gold
but what I do have
I am giving to you.
On authority of the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
do rise up and walk”
and Peter took the man by the right hand
and immediately his feet and ankles were healed
and he leapt up,
walked up and down
and entered the temple with them
while a crowd that witnessed this
gathered at the Solomon’s porch
and Peter said to the gathered people:
“why do you look at us
as if our own power or religiousness
caused this man to walk?
It is the God of our fathers
that has given godly glory to His Son
Jesus Christ
whom you have rejected
and delivered to Pontius Pilate
when he decided to release Him
and you denied the holy sincere and righteous One
and rather asked for a killer to be released to you,
did kill the life-giver, the Prince
but God did raise Him up from death.
The name of Jesus did heal and strengthen
the legs of this man
and by faith in the name of Jesus
this man is walking
and you do know how he had been born
and I know that by ignorance
you and your leaders did kill the Son of God
but Jesus did suffer as the prophets did predict
and do therefore repent and covert
that your sins may be blotted out
and times of refreshment may come.”
[Reference: Acts 3:1-19.]
Gert Strydom, 10 november 2014
I eat the fresh home-baked bread
that tastes like no other can
and taste the love that is pressed into the food
and this lentil soup
people will trade for an inheritance
and it is wonderful
to be at home
and to read love in your eyes.
Gert Strydom, 6 november 2014
I wait for the first summer rain,
the killing winter black ripe to cease to fall,
the grass to turn from white brown to green
before I will turn the ground again,
plant new vegetables, flowers and shrubs
but I hear birds sing
in the evergreen berry tree
as if asking me
to plant the first seed,
as if they are already inviting spring.
Gert Strydom, 6 november 2014
When my whole world was falling apart
nowhere I could find any answers
and I was blinded far too much by disillusion
and thunder falling mercilessly from everywhere
and then I did talk to the God of the universe,
did remind Him that I am still His child
and in the evening wind
I did see His image displayed for mere moments.
That life is inaccessible at times,
that a person has got to try time after time,
even if it feels as if there is no hope,
have got to trust past meaning and knowledge
nobody could teach me
but still I kept my eyes on You my Lord.
Gert Strydom, 6 november 2014
Like a tree trunk or a piece of wood
that is being carried along
by a river or the sea
and here and there bash
against rocks or the shore
and then again drift farther
I went through life
until we did meet
and I got resolution from you
and I do know what real love is.
Gert Strydom, 5 november 2014
Laying with a couple of bushman trackers
in the darkness of a almost starless clouded sky,
not being able to make a nice hot fire,
being too near to the enemy
I listened to their stories
and it was almost as if they
were wooing the moon
to shine through patches in the clouds
are able to identify any animal
from the sounds of howls, snorts
or even movements that it made
and later silence covers us like a cloak.
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