Allan Kolski Horwitz

When all strength had left him

all songs departed

an old man took him

and laid him

by a bridge on the National Road

sheep farmers

water diviners

kommandant in a casspir

passed him there

and he lay till noon without stirring

it was a jackal that drove him

from under the bridge to the limestone walls

of a donga

there for the gathering of sunflower seeds

on the road from Christiana

out of the shade of a dry eucalyptus

an old woman fed him pap

and a trickle of tea

so at last

under that blue sky

he felt strong in the knees