It is hard to leave the land of your birth forever, even if your tribe was responsible for most of its woes and you are no longer wanted.
HOMAGE TO EDWARD THOMAS
With thanks to Edward Thomas’ Adlestrop.
I have stopped at countless little dorps*
when no-one gets on or off.
Just a few moments as the train rests
and its hysterical hissing is replaced
by sounds of animals and birds.
Every time I travelled from Rhodesia,
my doomed, damned and devastated home
to South Africa, with its turn to come,
I passed through thousands of lives lived,
as important to them as mine to me.
They sped by in a blink
as my parents had from the world.
Now my last train ride down to Cape Town
to board a Union Castle liner...
As I leave Africa forever
I vow to visit Adlestrop.
*Small towns.
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