red snake in a white cloud

These lines but an acknowledgement

Of the city that birthed me

Where the autumnal park had the concrete elephant

That you could slide down

And the haunting ceramic gnomes

There was that village

With the kindergarten in the church

Where we sung our voices out

And the kindergarten with the red metal door

Where the ball went into the road

So did we too

The time short there, lest I remember how I threw up

And the kindergarten on the hillside

With the girl that reminded me of an antelope, or was it a cheetah?

Who walked with me home,

No matter where from, 

I went to, went back,

To that timber colossus on Long Street,

Those giant blue-green doors,

My first home, my solace, my free young years,

With the concrete courtyard-cum-vineyard

My first sip of wine

Where the slugs would drown

The beheaded fowl springs to mind too

I remember the goats

At the end of the backyard

Whose perimeter bordered the polluted stream

And the tractor tyre, so massive

Near the pear tree, opposite the neighbour who gave us milk

Just ahead of the maize, but beyond the berry bushes

By the wooden outhouse

Where the dog that ran away tripped me over

And shredded my shin

As you laughed

It was near there where I held the ladder for you

Or did I go up there too?

The house we shared

Near the junkyard where the boy got his leg stuck

In the spoke of his bike

And I never learned to ride mine,

Nor the rollerblades you got me either

I wouldn’t share my toys

Even though I was only yay big, and had to be led down the stone steps

To the embrace of the White tundra

Oh yes, that bit of the courtyard

Where you inflated the pool

And I rode on the crocodile once

Where we had the family gathering

And you caught the wasp in the jar

That courtyard, my bliss in the winter months

And I would giggle and I would glee

In my little ski outfit,

Thick enough I would spend hours at a time

Until I turned tomato red

Making snow angels, and most fun of all,

Burying my red snake, with the yellow stripes

My plastic treasure

And I would play my memory game

To find it again, just where I left it

Lo and behold

X marked the spot,

How I loved

And then we came here

And got in the white car

And the next years were but a blur

Now I have the snake not, but in soul

Now it marks an heirloom of the heart I had