## MORNING

Green is the hill, the valley's chimneys smoking, and
Children shrieking below the wooden stairs and in
The cool clear morn the
Straggly sheep come creeping and horses
Neigh within the dark hay barn.

Over the dew-dropped hill the morning star is
Peeping, adrift on the
Mauve tide of the morning sky
And lamb-clouds go slowly, distant pastures
Seeking, woolly and soft, upon a rosy trail.

Over the cobbled street the milk-man's cart is
Riding, bottles tinkling-tinkling in the quietness,
The blue horse snorts,
Exhaling steamy breath, whilst the lantern light
Flickers upon the leather straps.

Shop-keepers unshuttering their windows in the
Morning, lights sparkle brightly on the damp street,
Odours of apples, biscuits, cheese and bacon
Mingle in the sweet fresh air the
Customers to greet.

Windows are opened, a mother's voice is heard
Calling to her children inside a dark room,
Down in a kithchen a cat laps from a saucer
A girl stands in a doorway,
Stares into the yard's gloom.

And as the blue fades there is gold in the East,
On the land, on the houses, on the fences and trees,
A cock crows,
Arousing the world from its dreams
As the day dawns anew on the valley's peace.

## EVENING

The sun sets over the bay in full
Golden glory,
Leaving masses of soft, fluffy
Clouds aflame.
All is silent, day ends
And trees rise out of the shadows
To form a leaf pattern against
The evening sky.

## SHADOW AND SUNLIGHT

Against the sunlit walls
A shadow falls,
And for a moment free
The shadow of a tree
Forms a pattern of laee,
Full of grace,
On the face
Of yellow walls.

(Evening, District Six- cont.)

In which lean dogs prowl or forage
In garbage bins and stars twinkle,
Voices sing and lovers meet and night
Envelopes the town in dark curtains.

In the darkness women lie out through
Windows, silhouetted against candle light
Of their small rooms, hinged on the dim
Line of the street and night sky.

Damp backyards exude the odours of the slums,
Of rotten food in bins, life in crowded dirty rooms.
Of grubby children, animals, all mingling
In the long passage of the dark.

## HIGH TIDE AND EBB

A misty bay,
Repulsive and moody,
Silver stars ripple in a fiery dance.
The sun shines on the mad movement
Of the turbulent waves.
A mighty roar, green sea turns white,
A mad mighty charge to shore
And the eternal battle twixtewave and rock
Is on.
Choppy sea turns into fragments of mirrors and frothy lace,
As the rock stands firm in a shower of spray
Unyielding to the mighty embrace.
Defeated waters rush away
Leaving in its wake
Wet, cold emptiness.
Thus. And the battle
Is done.

## TIDE, 1950

The ocean's ride,
High and mighty the rollers roar,
Grey and green and wide.
Curling up, turn onto shore.
Magnificent, the mighty force,
That dashing, fumbling, crashing, tumbling,
Advances on a certain course
To shore.

On the stretch of narrow beach
Where the wet sands sermons preach,
Where the surf turns white and brown,
Then turns back and tumbles down
To meet the ever coming tide,
Meeting, but not there to bide.
But for ever dashing back
To a sudden whip-like crack.

Now the wind blows cold
And the drift-wood's on the sand,
Wind in grass is bent and battered
Where the storm's wild fury's shattered,
Where the sea has trampled land,
Big and wet and bold.