a stem
a bird aloft
a yellow land
under a lot of sky
and a grave
that’s all -
the first 20th century
war poem
a thing said
in the briefest
of mother-tongues
speech’s
wildflower
burnt with the grass
we can second-guess
this hard Afrikaans
soft as a tear
Oxford
26 January 2018
This poem refers to the poem ” Dis Al” by Jan F.E. Celliers (1865-1940) which was one of the first modernist poems in any language. Celliers was an Afrikaner combatant in the 1899-1902 South African War, who returned from exile in 1907 to write the following poem:-
Dis Al
dis die blond
dis die blou
dis die veld
dis die lug
en’n voel draai bowe en eensame vlug
dis al -
dis’n balling gekom
oor die oseean
dis’n graf in die gras
dis’n vallende traan -
dis al
Celliers’ poem might be translated as:-
It’s this yellow it’s this blue it’s the veld it’s the sky and a bird wheels in lone flight - that’s all
It’s an exile come back from over the ocean it’s a grave in the grass it’s a falling tear - that’s all
I recall from the mid 1960s my mother’s uncle who fought in that conflict. New Zealand was once at war with the Afrikaner republics. My wife’s paternal grandfather was born in South Africa. I have been involved in indigenous grievance reconciliation and I have written on Sir George Grey’s policy in South Africa between 1854-61. I find myself on all the opposing sides of that conflict.
I have always wondered when a settler people cease to be settlers, short of dying, or returning where they came from. Celliers’ poem offers drastic answers.
The Afrikaans of his poem is so simple, and belongs so much to what was once a North Sea Sprachbund, that any who know Middle English, Flemish, Dutch, Frisian, German or Plattdeutsch may understand it. A perfect epitaph then.