Poetry: Anthony Wade

Anthony Wade

Clean Soil

On quick small steps always

within the sharp-sided shadow

of her tall young father

hovering intently,

she tottered with apparent purpose

down the path before

standing before me,

a stranger sat in shade,

her guileless gaze rooted

in a clean soil into which

malignant gardeners

will soon strive to sow sour seeds,

intending they should spring up

into dark thickets of intolerance,

even into a witless hate,

yet her parents

may set a watch,

and in wisdom teach her

to acquire and hone weapons

of compassion, and reason,

bravely to wield them well.

***

 

 

The Obverse Of Glory

(at The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917)

 

Without the walls,

sun-glowing gravestones

parading in strict military order

across close-tended lawns,

whirls of blood-red roses blooming,

every visiting mourner silent.

 

Within, maps, medals, ribbons,

the hanging black-and-white faces

of men captured before their sacrifice,

the reverent order disturbed

only by a scrawled letter

of the betrothed

of one of the countless

consumed by the mud,

crying out:

 

"The thought that Jock died

for his country is no comfort

to me. His memory is

all I have left to love.”

***

 

Promises Of Change

At Wildernis,

white locals gaily greet white friends

 

also strolling the daily morning promenade

along the stretching beach

 

amid the cooling mist gently off the sea,

groomed pets yapping at the foaming surf.

 

At Swellendam,

black youths sweat profusely,

 

each strapped to a rope cable,

yoked like a team of three oxen,

 

tread-milling the weighty pontoon

across the sluggish muddy river,

 

a primitive car ferry for white drivers,

one loudly racially abusing.

***

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Setu, November 2025