In 1956 I came to Africa, a small English child,
Your folk took my little white hand in theirs of
brown,
They showed me their world, wonderful & wild,
Nothing like my far away home of London town.
From your gourds I drank honey of strange wild bees,
I was taught your clicks, & like the hyena, how to
laugh,
I was shown hidden marvels no white man sees,
And how with the crocodile I learned to bath.
Your folk showed me secrets I still know today,
Of buried eggs, the rain bird´s call & healing
herbs,
To know the language of trees & their leaves at
play,
And how to talk to all the beasts & birds.
The dance to call the rain to earth,
The words spoken by wind & cloud,
The sacred rites of every birth,
And how to walk the earth so proud.
I still taste
the tsama melon & marula seeds,
On my old tongue mingling with Bushman tears,
I left my heart buried under desert weeds,
Lost in the Kalahari with my childhood years.
Fifty years since I walked those sands,
Since I heard those stories told in musical dust,
Please God, guide your folk back to their lands,
Where the hyena laughs & the elephants musth.
Dawid, now an ancestor, gone are you,
Leaving etched in ancient fire & sand,
I now invoke you my special friend, “CAMAGU”,
I offer you, & in apology my friend, my old white hand.
Hail to you, Bushman Dawid Kruiper,
Your history written in Kalahari sands,
Not in pen upon the white man’s paper,
Your tales told from ancient clicks & golden hands.
Hamba Kahle!
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