[derek fenton]

I wrote this poem for my brother sixteen years ago after he volunteered to take part in a relief convoy from South Africa to Zimbabwe.
He had fought in a futile and misguided war there and wanted to give something back to the people who had once been his enemy. He reconciled with them, but is now crippled by PTSD, anxiety and bipolar disorder, a casualty of the futility of war like millions of others and many of our friends who died needlessly.


A RETURN VISIT TO MOUNT DARWIN

Is that the baobab which shaded him
thirty five years ago as he prised
landmines and booby traps from lethal lairs
knowing that every second could be his last.

Is that a descendant of the baboon
who mocked him, an unbeliever, as he
crossed himself ironically back then
and took the go away bird literally

staying away from the land of his birth.
Until now, a bible not an F.N.
to protect him: a weapon to convert
people whose parents and grandparents
once wanted him dead.

Later that night, lying on his back
gazing at a dazzling sky, convinced
of the existence of a caring God,
he feels at home again thanking
his training for allowing him eternal life.

In the dishevelled cemetery nearby
a comrade’s bones are chewed by ants
as they have been for centuries.

The baobab’s deformed arms tickle tinkling stars
bohowing baboons breed boisterously
and platoons of ants march in time to the cemetery.

Published by the late Les Murray in Quadrant Magazine in Australia in @008.