EK IS SEWENTIEN

“O, ewige deining van die grote en magtige oseaan
Wat onstuimig-spoelend jou branders op die rotse stukkend slaan.”
Theo Wassenaar hoor sy enkele polsslag in die oneindigheid
En sy woorde maak my deel van die lewensheerlikheid.

Ek sien die sand, die strand, die son en die see
En my siel dans en dein in ekstase op die golwe mee!
Ek weet, ek glo, ek voel dat die lewe lok:
Tikketikketik – tik-tik juig die klok.

Die lewensvreug van die jeug klop juigend in my lyf
En ek jubel en ek sing want dis plesier wat my dryf
Om te werk en te doen, met lewens drif en vuur!
Tieketiek, tieketiekiedraai… omgeswaai sak die uur.

Want skielik beskou ek ‘n onskuldige kind wat rou en ly
En die pyn wring en skeur, die onreg vryf dof deur in my!
Is ons Skepper dan … O, nee! Nee! Ek is bot en dom-sat van die stryd!
En Tik… ketaktik.. TAK! …. Beur die eindelose tyd.

Ek is ‘n vlammende vuurtoring van skaamte en onheiligheid:
Naarstig soekend na myself, verdwaal in eie onsekerheid!

HULLE spoel golwend, spottend om my verkrummelende voet
In die skuiwende sand, die Tik-tak-tyd spartel : iemand moet boet….

Ek is stof en tot stof en trane geneig, modder, is ek!
Modder suig aan modder en ek val met my gesig in die drek!
God IS, Hy IS ‘n liefdevolle genadige Vader – maar maak alles sin?
Bemin Hom, bemin Hom, tik die tyd, net ek is te seer en …. Te min.

Dan weer sien ek die trietsige randeierkind wat rou en ly
Pateties, selfbeheb, sy is tog nog net so deel van my…..

Dan skuim EK al spottend om haar gebroke voet in die sand:
Skaam jou, sies! Waar is jou trots? Wees wys ; mannebestand!
Ha-ha-ha lag die tyd my honend uit!

Ek asem in en uit, wieg op en af, vae vreugde – diep verdriet:
Stiller waters … dis die honger haaie se gebied
Bang? GA! Ek gaan my gang – los my net uit!
Terwyl die tyd in die donker fluit…..

Ek sien, ek sien tog nog soms die strand – die son en die see….
Maar my siel, stewig geanker, bly aardsgedwee……
Ek weet, ek voel, en aanvaar ; ek word sinies en koud,
Maar sewentien is mos nog lank nie so bitter oud!

Ha-ha! Hoe later hoe kwater, koggel die klok en skater:
Maar net ‘n enkel druppel in die gehyg van die groot-groot water!

“It is man’s destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence.” – Charles F Kettering

(c) HCMeintjes

Mystification - Nothing Rhymes

We come to school and learn what we don’t know
Cahlil Gibran’s same door as in I went for ever more.

Shakespeare said, we are such stuff as dreams are made on – of?
Nightmares or inspiration? He deepens my mystification.
We are made in the image of the Heavenly Father
Who is spirit invisible, mystical, ethereal, inspiration.

God likens Himself to an earthly father – this father of love and life
Now love mystifies me most. Isn’t mother love the symbol
Of caring. It was Totius who likened mother love as depicted.
Well, “die oue put”, dripping tears of anxiety providing water
Eternally – “dit gee maar immer”

Isn’t mother love rather that litera many splendoured thing?
Mary, mother of God…. Mary Stopes clinic? Empty hearts
And bodies leaving the rotting goo gratefully behind with glee
Their little lives not rounded – never woken from the sleep?

Is “making love” not “ making hate”? Sowing the seeds
Of inconvenience and death? The seeds of death so small that
Even a microscope cannot detect them and yet they reveal
A world in which the virus needs a home – a human cell

Worlds within worlds which we can never see.
Our little lives are rounded with a sleep Shakespeare,
Are we ever really fully awake? There are more things on
Earth under Heaven than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I used to wonder
Disillusionment: a churning, burning, unbearably hot mass of fiery gases!
The moon? Diana, chaste, cool oh so romantic! Oh, no!
A heartless rock: dry, barren arid! Have a heart!
Not Washkansky’s bloody lifeless organ!

Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I used to ponder
A sun a solar system, a galaxy or two or three or three-trillion
The milky way? Infinity, the great black nothing from which
We wake from the eternal sleep to God’s mirror into which
Humans stare always, until the final real awakening.

(c) HCMeintjes

THE POEM FOR MKANSI VUNENE

I am, Vunene: Vunene Mkansi –
My essential identity – my dark destiny?
Rooting me: sounding the rugged kranzes
The murmuring streams of the land –
Hear, in Vunene Mkansi, the soughing of the wind
The moving, inspiring, informing wind.

The whispering, winds of change …
Skakespeare says our little lives
Are rounded with a sleep – how strange
To hear his brief, grave truth, yet survives.
Unchanged, on the soughing of the breeze
The shared, waking wind
The whispering wind.

We inhale the wind, the invisible wind of life
Babies gulp the air on waking from the abyss of sleep
Alive, searching, yearning, aching …. Human strife
Against entering the eternal sleep to keep
The gusty, corroding, traumatic tornadoes… at bay!
The final doldrums… lost at sea… we weep
For the winds from Betlehem,
I wait for them.

With the spirit of the wind, I will find my soul
And my woken soul will soar !
For I am the future.

(c)HC Meintjes

The little Herdsman - MODISE (a true story)

Modise shrinks into the darkest shadow...
At the angry shouting, stumbling and cursing:
Ta demands food - thunderous his brow!
He carefully removes his watch... Now searching....

He brings down an empty tin can on Ma's head:
Bang, Bang, Bang, now give my food to me!
Modise did not cook the pap; there is no bread -
Their last Induna was swopped for the BB.

Modise, like dough on a stick. Modise,
A rope, with knots for knuckles and knees
And his shadow like a bent-over, crooked D:
He has never heard thank you, nor please.

In his shadow he's awaited peace in passed-out rest:
Ma lying spread-eagled on her bundled blanket...
He covers her clumsily, somewhat, with her Sunday best.
The Ta in tie and jacket is snoring on the bed.

Modise gently wraps the baby in Ma's other attire
At the ashes he patiently strings onion rings
On a green stick to fry, tula-tula he softly sings
As some of the conca eyes still shine with hopeful fire.

Copyright(c) HC Meintjes