PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The scrubland heat rose
to a fever pitch of cicadas
As the couple trekked
through the Great Karoo1
beneath the seeping sun
that seared the earth mosaic.

Under the scorched thorn trees
that cracked their knuckles in spite,
their love had reddened the coral-aloes
and run through the dongas2 and dry pans
Bitter in the face of the vultures
that bathed in the mirage’s flittering shroud.

Chasing down the final miles to the Cape,
The wild dogs had caught their scent
So he implored her not to rest longer,
put an Ostrich egg to her ragged lips –
The last drop of life peered from the shell
As he brushed the burnt skin from her brow.

By the cool of the night
they were guided by the transiting
Southern Cross, as its silver studs
unhooked themselves over the horizon
They fled through the menacing shapes,
taunted by the choir of alien cries.

And over the Durbanville Hills
When Table Bay was sighted,
it yawned blue at the sandy coves
And stretched between them
Parting them, their

Sworn promises
Unpromised
by the rolling breakers,
swept from their lips by the foaming
white horses.

On the beach he had waited
Beneath the moon that rose full
and heavy with betrayal
His despair had spilt out with the tide
His voice lay in her footprints –

No more than a still instant in the wind.