Taken from Apartheid: A Collection of Writings on South African Racism by South Africans ed. Alex La Guma

Sometimes I get to do a job that allows me to read through somewhat uncommon books. Recently, I was checking out the title above, and I encountered the following poem. To borrow words from a previous Emily, this particular entry made me "feel as if the top of my head were taken off." So I wanted to share it with you.

"Scene Near an Ethnic College"

Arthur Nortje

Gull swerves and screams sharp doubt.

The wild grass curves

back from asphalt road. The ten-ton trucks

one spraying stone the other straw

roar on. The towering red-brick buildings

assault my sight with ranks of tall blind windows

split along the glass by spying sunbeams.

Lawns continue the narrative,

scornful in their crewcts, trimmed

by some hangdog hottentot.

You hear repeatedly

the trains that chug away through thickets.

Aircraft in formation, swooping higher

possess the gift of flight, can master peril...

The jets drill distance brittle, the executives

(nordic, incompatible iwth me)

stare sedately from a ninth-floor office.

Under the arches I bow through the shadows;

a shrill bird in the air asks of the sun

o where is the sea now, o where is home?

Cape Town, 1964