(rough translation)*

debt
debt
debtor

tonight it howls
in tumbleweed tongues
beaten about and windblown
over a barren, over-there road
a dust-tongue stretches
licking skeletons
all the way to feet of the silver hills
that lie in the moon of the Little Karoo

debt
debt
debt in vein

Mother is a stranger
just standing there and sipping tea
in another woman’s blue kitchen

debt
debt
debt in her

all staring at the cracks
reflecting on the windowpane
the fragile earth’s
dismembered

but

the rain will come
my child
the rain will come
prophesy the rust-red clouds

all bellowing in the wind

Mother will stand
unequivocal
as untamed buffalo grass --
rooted and valid