children of the wind


from the ABC set ФФФФ Selected Poems: 1989 - 2009

Children of the wind

(Translation of Koos du Plessis's 'Kinders van die Wind')

I know an old, old ditty
of life's will and ways
of long forgotten vessels in
the cellars of the sea

The words have been forgotten
and still the ditty drills
like scarce remembered extracts of
very ancient tale¦

Of wanderers without direction
of seekers that never find¦
and after all, all of us
were only children of the wind

Faces, dreams, names
have been scattered by the wind;
and where to all the words have gone,
only a child would know

Wanderers without direction
of seekers that never find¦
and after all, all of us
were only children of the wind

Centurion, 2003.

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