Caledonian Market
Transplanted for a day from the harsher clime
The pearlies gleam, the feather bob and sway
And Table Mountain witnesses the mime
Of scenes once famous in their place and day.
Here is the spot where browsing will repay
The wanderer with half a score of tales,
If such he seek, and bargains by the way;
Where wits are sharp and humour never fails.
These things we laugh about – who knows what pride
They held for someone else. And even now
Some pieces have not sought their stalls dry-eyed
But speak of sacrifice. To these I bow.
Come buy! Be generous and gay!
But in your hearts salute a passing day.
(Caledonian Market in aid of the Deaf Friday April 29th.
I am told the original no longer functions in its old London habitat. D.S.)
Calendar
I doubt that I should have the courage to face
A calendar that had no place
For Christmas Day
And Easter . . . and Whitsuntide . . .
The days of grace
symbolizing the birth
Of selfless love
As rightful ruler of the earth . . .
And love’s immortality . . .
And the initiation of man
Into the living flame
Of immortal love, everywhere
And forever the same.
Even they who cannot bear to share
Belief absorb the reflected light.
And night is less dark to wear.
Dorothea Spears.
Capacity for Vision
It needs big-minded men to rise above
The pettiness of personality.
It needs a greater vision, broader love
To stake this span of brief mortality,
Submerging self to fit the Master Plan,
In greater loyalties less forgot,
Subjecting love of men to love of Man
That seeks to know not who is right, but what.
Small souls afflicted with myopia,
Who cannot see beyond the expedient near
Can never glimpse the bright Utopia
Beyond the puny dykes of hate and fear
With which they strive to stem this breeching sea –
The evolution of Humanity.
“Veritas”
Welbeloond Rd
Constantia, C.P.
Cape Autumn
The Autumn sings the swan song of the year
Because she knows that Winter's time is near.
The soft and gentle rain is weeping with sorrow
Because she knows the secret of tomorrow . . −
But in between the sun Is shining with laughter
Because he knows the secret of what comes after.
The clouds grow richer with the dying day
And melody is more mature in May.
An echo of the tune October sings
In northern hemisphere to migrant wings
O singing colour swelling to perfection!
O beautiful death − that ends in resurrection!
I love the deeper notes that Autumn knows,
And leaves are lovely when the swallow goes.
Dorothea Spears
Cape Autumn the oaks
The oaks… the oaks..! God, how they blaze
and burn with colour through the pale blue haze
of waning May,
flaunting their loveliness day after day!
The slim white poplars are already nude
and that sad prude
the dusky pine, is sombre in her solitude.
The careless, shaggy-haired chrysanthemums
are turning rusty: winter comes
apace
and fleet on fleet of proud cloud galleons race
across chilly skies,
and mist is in the eyes
of morning.
On the sea the wild white horses snort a warning
to fearful ships: the mountain towers gray
above the troubled bay…
But oh, the splendour of the oaks out Newlands way!
Indian Summer
This is a day for dreaming
And sitting in the sun,
This unfamiliar sun that has the seeming
Of gentleness, with none
Of that mid-summer arrogance of gleaming
That causes men to shun
His company on other days.
Now he is kind:
Every wind is sleeping
And all the earth’s resigned…
Accepting, and at peace. Reaping
Is over, and the mind
Is turned to winter, keeping
The memory of spring
Buried under scarlet flowers
And flaming berries, and the wing
Of silence broods above the dreaming hours.
This is a day when men should be outside
Absorbing peace to store
For winter, when the tempests ride
Unchallenged and the elements are at war.
Earth that holds the Spring
Within its core
Need have no fear of winter’s bludgeoning.
“Veritas”, Constantia, C.P.
Cape Summer Day
What shall I say
Now that the splendid Spring has given way
To Summer’s dusty and dishevelled day?
Now that the Southeast wind
Unleashes all we bind
And frays the edges of the disposition
Of mankind
With its repeated inquisition?
The sun, with unappealing ray,
Assails the unprotected earth
And cracks the soil to leering mirth
Ere it has given birth to half its flowers…
Now that the pregnant hours
Of half forgotten Spring have lost their powers.
What shall I say
To panting mortals on this summer’s day?
What shall I say but this:
Does the grape flinch from the sun’s kiss,
Or does the grape refrain?
Or have you heard the apple tree complain,
Who hoard the savour of the sun
For our replenishment when day is done?
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
CAPE TOWN
Southern city, nestled snugly
Twixt the mountain and the Bay;
Formed of confidence and contrast.
Storm and sunshine, grave and gay;
Mothered by the restful mountain.
Fathered by the restless sea;
Sponsored by the southern sunshine
And the winds that wander free;
Steadfast as her mountain mother.
Changeful as her ocean sire;Fickle as her southern sponsors,
Warm with ardour and desire.
This is Cape Town, O, ye traveller.
Fair, alluring, fancy-free—
But if thou shouldst stay to love her
She will make a slave of thee!
DOROTHEA GRAHAM BOTHA
Cape Winter
Who says the garden keeps
No colours up her sleeves
For when the weeping Winter creeps
Across the grass, and drips from all the eaves?
Who says the garden sleeps
When all the tired leaves
Are richly raked in random heaps
Whence earth the beauty of the year retrieves.
I draw the curtains wide
To greet each laggard day –
The eager garden leaps inside
With green and grey glamorous words to say.
I tell you they have lied.
Although the skies be grey,
Who say that all the colours died
When Autumn said goodbye, and slipped away.
The week mid-winter came
The red-hot pokers told;
Poinsettias’ vivid flash of fame;
Mimosas’ unadulterated gold;
That Winter is but a name.
And who complains of cold
When heaths and proteas flaunt their fame
And aloes, firethorns, gold showers are bold?
Airlie Close
Constantia, C.P.
Cecil John Rhodes
A Reverie at the Memorial, Mowbray.
Here was a Man; too big for puny minds
To comprehend. He thought in continents
Where we, absorbed in little interests, spoke
In trivial terms or morgen or of towns.
He thought in centuries while we thought in years.
A Man of Iron? Perhaps …We thought him hard
Because his vision brooked no obstacles.
Impatient of the prides that barred his path,
The myriad things that stood across his way,
He swept them all aside with ruthless hand-
He must go forward, let them stand or fall!
The vision must be wrought, the dream achieved!
We are small men; small virtues and small faults
Our lot in life. And do we dare condemn
This great man that his weakness matched his might?
Ah Rhodes, how human were thy frailties.
But how sublime thy vision! Canst thou not
Let fall thy mantle on some other son
Of Africa? For she has need of such.
She needs big men, and strong, and unafraid;
She needs great visions such as thou hast dreamt
On that rude bench, from which thy heart could see
The hinterland – thy soul, the centuries.
Celebrity Concert
Every seat was taken in the Hall
To bear Celebrity's interpretation
Of Beethoven's Concerto
A tapestry of faces, wall to wall;
A pattern or people at peace, a pattern whole.
The river of music flowed about us lapping
The consciousness, buoying the boat of soul,
Keeping wonder afloat and beautifying the night.
Followed the usual ovation,
The friendly thunder of clapping,
Everybody clapping all together
Blended by the music's ebb and flow -
Until the lightning struck and broke the clement weather,
Vivid flashes focusing with bright
Repeated stabs the furthest corner . . .
I shall not remember how Christian Ferras played
I shall remember two dark music-loving faces
Suddenly etched against the cruel light
Flashed again and again on their humble places.
I shall remember the broken pattern of people at peace.
I shall remember an era ended.
The rending of the tapestry music and men had made
That cannot be mended.
Dorothea Spears
Cello
Who would think, to see a cello
Leaning nonchalantly against a chair,
The pathos and the passion and the glory
Hidden there.
Silent, waiting to be wakened
Waiting the hand to touch the mellow strings
And give the folded beauty wings?
Perhaps some people are cellos.
Dorothea Spears
Certainty
This is certain: whatever else be vain
This is certain: Spring will come again.
Whatever is uncertain this is sure:
That life and love and death will endure.
Airlie Close
Constantia
Chance encounter
Opportunity so often comes in disguise.
We meet him in the street
And look in his face
And listen to his replies
And say - “It's been nice meeting you,
Good day” - and go our ways
On self important feet,
And never recognize
The opportunity we thought
We sought, and could have caught
if we had been aware;
If we had been more wise.
Dorothea Spears
CHANGE IS THE KEY
Change is the key to immortality.
Is not life itself a succession of deaths,
A cycle of rebirths, a constancy
Of brief exhaling and inhaling breaths?Our manifested world proclaims indeed
This fundamental truth : emerging life
Is mingled with emergent death from seed
To soul in constant metamorphic strife.The earth to the magnetic sun replying.
Not one change, but a constant synthesis.
Not one death is required, but constant dying
In life’s eternal metamorphosis.Think you we are immortal, you and I?
Only as we die . . . as we die.
CHANT OF THE WOODLANDS.
Glistening water,
Glint of the sun :
Infinite pathos
Of day nearly done.Fugitive perfume
Of woodland and dell,Shadows a-lurking
Where fairies may dwell.Come from the cities, ye men who still dream.
And watch with me here by the side of the stream !
The day’s on the wane and the city is grey
But still in the woodland there’s promise of May;
While yet ye have eyes that can see, come away !The sounds of the city are jangled and drear.
But still in the woodlands the echoes call clear.
Oh, come then, while yet ye have ears that can hear—
Ripple of water,
Rustle of leaves ;
Calls from the bushes
Where Piet-My- Vrou grieves.Chirping of crickets,
Sigh of the breeze :
Come from the cities, ye men who still dream.
And list with me here at the marge of the stream !
The song of the city is all out of tune
But still in the woodlands the turtle-doves croon.
While still ye have lips learned to sing, oh, come soon !The city is crowded with hatred and pride,
But still in the woodlands the spaces are wide.
While yet ye have hearts that can love, come aside!Twitter of pigeons
Seeking a mate :
Blossom and pollen
And kindness of Fate.Peace and contentment.
Blue skies above—
God in the woodlands
Proclaiming His love.Come from the cities, ye men who still dream,
And learn with me here at the marge of the stream !
The city is greedy, discordant, and grey.But still in the woodlands there’s silence to pray.
While yet ye have souls that can feel, come away!
Charity
I asked for a couple of roses
To garnish my table one night:
You gave me an armful of blossoms
That filled all the room with their light.
I asked for an hour’s communion
To garnish my heart for a day:
You gave me a heart full of friendship
That gladdens my life all the way.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Cheap
It is cheap valour that must win
Approval by disparaging another.
It is cheap victory that's won
By crude comparison,
Or holding up to ridicule
The weakness of a brother.
It is cheap wit
That makes a fool
Of a friend to win a laugh by it.
Dorothea Spears
Chickens come home to roost
Before we cross to the other side
(Or so they say . . . so they say)
All our chickens come home to bide,
(Alack-a-day! Alack-a-day!)
Come home to stay.
All our chickens from far and wide
In time and distance to betray,
Hatched in anger or love or pride,
Things forgotten and far away
And kept at bay.
Of course, of course they may have lied -
If all come home and start to lay
(And there will be no place to hide).
What will conscience have to pay?
Alack-a-day!
Dorothea Spears
Child in the World and Child in the Womb
Child in the world and child in the womb
Slumber now… Too soon, too soon
The world will wake you. Flowers will bloom
And flowers will fade, morning and noon
And night: Oh, would that you could stay
Safe in my heart the livelong day:
Safe in my heart, child in the womb
And child in the world, while the flowers bloom.
Slumber now, innocent boy,
When you waken wake with joy.
Slumber now, child in the womb,
And child in the world, unaware of doom.
Child of matron and child of maid –
Too soon… too soon the flowers will fade.
Children of Separation
The children of separation choose
This thing and that, of earth and sea and sky,
For which they think it is fit to fight and die,
Defend the element they choose to use
Unmindful of the heritage they lose
Who should be heir to all. “An erf!”
They cry,
To whom the world is willed! And life goes by
Perpetuating that which time should fuse,
We teach division, science and precision;
Would master life with force or rule-of-thumb;
Take individuation as our goal.
We fail and fail again who lack the vision
To recognise the answer in the sum;
To add the parts together and find a whole.
7.7.60
This is the 101st day of the State of Emergency in South Africa.
CHINCHERINCHEES.
For days the sky was sulky and the clouds were dripping
tears;The mountains in a pall of gloom were bound.
And all of dreary Nature seemed enveloped in dark
fearsLest Spring was lost to never more be found.
My heart was getting homesick, and my soul seemed
held by barsOf dismal fog, and night brought no relief.
It wouldn’t be so hard, I thought, if I could see
the stars.For always stars have strengthened my belief.
In all my endless wanderings, where’er I chanced to
roam,When garish day brought longing, through the
nightThe stars have kept me company when I have sighed
for home—But now the stars were hidden from my sight.
And so my heart grew weary and my hope was on the
wane.Discouragements were closing in a crowd
And all that I could see in life were leaden skies and
pain.When just one smile of sun shone through the cloud.
I opened wide the window e’er the shaft of light
should pass.And lo, the stars had fallen and were gleaming in the
grass!
Christmas
Behind the symbol − truth. Could we but tear
Aside the veiling words and forms reveal
The truth the parables of life conceal
Assuredly the Christ would wait us there.
The living Christ: but we are weak to dare
To shatter the appearance, free the real
And we would rather like our fathers kneel
To images when we aspire to prayer
Shall we not seek within the Christmas story
The deeper meaning, rending old tradition
To win the secret of the second birth?
The manger and the cross, the rising glory
The plan of God attaining to fruition—
The Son of God within the sons of Earth
Dorothea Spears
Christmas Is A Birthday
Christmas is a birthday. We remember
In December how a birth
Divided time into Before and After
Upon this little planet we call earth.
Christmas is Somebody’s birthday… yet,
Enveloped in the tinsel and the laughter,
The dancing and the crackers and the noise,
How often we forget
What Christmas means, and let
Its toys eclipse it wonders and its joys.
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P.
Christmas Sonnet for Southerners
The distance is no greater to the manger,
(There being in the spirit world no space).
The Star shines here to guide the questing stranger
As surely as in any holy place.
In southern skies the Star of Hope is gleaming
As in the North, and Wise Men follow swift
To find the goal of all their search and dreaming
And at the manger leave their hearts, a gift.
For every place is holy where Love enters,
And Christ is born wherever Love and need
Unite to build a stable where Light centres:
To such a dwelling Christmas comes indeed.
And strangely, in this loneliest spot on earth,
The human heart, the Christ-child comes to birth.
City Songster
There is bird In the cage of me
That never ceases singing;
A captive, yet forever free,
Though tethered ever winging
Beneath the traffic noise of earth,
The clamour and The din
That deafens men and mutes the mirth
Is constant song within.
When raucous life becomes a fear
Too loud, too long to bear
Be silent. . . Listen . . Tune your ear . . .
The song, the wing is there.
Dorothea Spears
Civilizations never die suddenly
They say the Christians compassed Julian's death,
And his successors mortally wounded
The empire he so hardly won.
Short was the emperor's brief reprieve of breath
After the killing was done.
But Rome lingered on,
Dying piecemeal, here a finger, there
A hand. Did civilization understand?
And did the mass of the people even care,
So busily quibbling, selling, buying?
Or was the process so prolonged
They didn't even know that they were dying?
Dorothea Spears
Clouds
Clouds …
The angels are sewing the filmy shrouds
For the souls of the dead:
Winding sheets gossamer as the dew,
For the timid soul that is born a-new
From the far world sped.
I should not care
To fly when a storm is on its way
And have a gown of black or grey
For my soul to wear.
With the break of morn
I’ll take my flight, or when day is old,
For I’d have a frock of red or gold
To my soul adorn.
Sometimes in crowds
The souls go home, gazing high,
It seems that the whole of the heavy sky
Is full of clouds …
And angels sewing the filmy shrouds
For the souls of the dead:
Winding sheets gossamer as the dew
For the timid souls that are born a-new
From the far world sped.
Coal is black
Coal is black
And gold is yellow
And diamonds are white
But gold can drive no ship nor train,
Nor diamonds give a city light.
Coal is black and dull
Diamonds and gold are bright:
But gold can set no furnaces a-glow
Nor diamonds warm a bitter night.
Coal is black. Take care …
The fire in coal may sleep
But it is there
to turn the wheels of industry
or spread destruction-
Coal is black
beware.
Cocktail Conversation at Christmas
We spoke of many things in heaven and earth
And, since it was the festive season of the year,
Conceptions (physical and mental), births, and a birth,
And the relationship of love and hate and fear
And now and then and there and here.
“Have you ever thought,” he said,
"Who crowded the inns of Bethlehem that night?
Could you find room in this city for a bed
To cradle ineffable Love and Light?
Who crowded the inns of Bethlehem −
Cupidity, resentment. yes, and hate −
But mostly selfishness and pride.
Knock today on almost any gate
And find if there is room for unadulterated love inside.
Tomorrow is always conceived in yesterday
Our inns are overcrowded now and here in just that way.”
Dorothea Spears.
5.1.61
Colour
There are thoughts which lie too deep for words,
And griefs too hard to be dissolved by tears
Too bitter to be coated, like a pill,
With sugar for the swallowing, and fears
Too potent to be hidden by the will.
So we are silent. So we do not weep.
So we bury thought. But the heart knows
And is appalled, watching the doors close.
Dorothea Spears.
7.10.1967
Come Christmas Day
Come Christmas Day, and I can truly say
I wish no person ill – with heart at rest
Then I can make my sacrifice to God
And bid the Christ child be my welcome guest
Come Christmas Eve, or so I do believe,
And there be any hatred in my heart
My offering to God is unreceived
And, sorrowing, the Christ child must depart.
Come Gently, Winter
Come slowly, Winter.
Give us time to prune the tree and cut the wood
And stack it tidily away
As wise men do,
And gather in the harvests that shall be our food,
And boughs of scarlet berries that shall keep our houses gay
The winter through.
Come gently. Winter.
As the winter now.
Leave the lovely leaves of gold
And red and brown and russet on the bough
A little while
Nor let the rude hand of the tempest tear
The trusting tree too suddenly,
Nor leave it shocked and shaken, stripped and bare,
But rather let the leaves drop one by one
As now
Into the Indian Summer air.
Dorothea Spears
Come Not Back, My Dear
Oh, come not back in Autumn. It was Spring
When you were here;
The world was all of gold, and you were King,
My dear…My dear…
Marsh marigolds and buttercups, and the sun –
All shining gold!
The year was very new, and we were young,
But now…’Tis old.
The leaves, like old love’s tears, have all been shed;
And Spring’s bright eyes
Are dim, and Summer’s passionate flowers dead,
And cold the skies.
Ah, yes, I know new Springs will deck the hills
But this is truth –
That Man, however subtly Spring distils,
Has but one youth.
Some come not back again. Remember me
As through a haze
In all the dead Spring’s golden panoply…
And go your ways.
“Oaklands”
Newlands Ave
Comedian’s Soliloquy
I’m not a bandolier no
Nor harlequin nor Pierrot,
Nor yet a wandering mistrial I
For open roads I do not sigh
I’m not a strolling vagabond
Nor do I pine for hills beyond
And you can very safely wager
I’m not a sergeant major!
Neither am I a bachelor gay
I do not travel the broad highway,
I do not sigh for eyes of blue
Or brown (or black!) or any hue
I’m not an admiral, oh dear no!
In fact at sea I stay below
And just because my hair is wavy
Don’t think I’m in the navy.
In fact I’m more of the funny things
About which every baritone sings
And tenors’ amorous desires
Leave all untouched my inner fires
A far, far harder role is mine –
In joy or sorrow, rain or shine
I’ve got to go on being funny
If I’m to get my money.
So laugh, all you people
For the joke that’s intended
Laugh though it hurts –
- This song is ended.
(Spoken a la Pagliacci)
Comment On Modern Art
The sudden little beauties that startle the heart!
The small perfections visioned unaware –
The petals of a red rose fallen apart
And lying velvet on a table bare
Against the richness of dark and polished board…
The gossamer skeleton of a leaf…the light
Reflected on white walls from colour stored
In gardens… planing pelicans in flight…
A naked branch against a Wintry moon…
The brittle golden rain of Autumn leaves…
The sheen upon the starling’s wing at noon…
The dew pearled fabric which the spider weaves-
When God dispenses Beauty as largesse
Must Man immortalize the ugliness?
Common or Garden
It's true . . . No bloom
Of mine will win a prize
From judges horticulturally wise.
But when the weather's grey with gloom
And heaven looks at earth with misty eyes
I revel in the radiance of broom,
And generous sweetpeas grow here with ease.
I scatter their largesse with a thought
Knowing tomorrow will have brought
Renewed supplies
Of these so fragrant tethered butterflies.
My lawns are shabby, true, but puppies play
Unchided in the grass with eager eyes,
And, within reason,
There's something colourful for every season,
Not elegant, but gay .
Vines and fruit trees, willows, oaks; a stream,
A pool for swimming; singing bees;
And poplar trees that rise
To etch their gothic spires against the skies
And peace to dream . .
Dorothea Spears
Common or garden sense
Everywhere in the world, and every day
We are committing murder in thought or fact:
Slowly, by the poison words we say,
Or swiftly by some sudden violent act.
Every moment of every day we sow
The seeds of love or anger or dissension
Which, carried round the world on winds that blow,
Mature to crops beyond our comprehension.
The air's so full of seeds or noxious weeds
Seeking crannies in the minds of men
To propagate their doubts and hates and greeds
That grow and fruit and seed and blow again
That it behoves each man to keep a hoe
At hand and daily cultivate his mind
And heart; and note what weeds and flowers grow
To multiply the species of their kind.
Dorothea Spears
Communion
This morning surely Heaven met with earth
To bear a day of beauty so profound
And God Himself presided at its birth:
The very peace of God is in the ground.
The vines are heavy and the trees have caught
The scent of autumn. Circling mountains press
Against serenity wherein no thought
Of winter stints the golden sun’s caress.
The turtle doves with low incessant praise
Accompany the silence that is deep
And satisfying as a prayer that lays
Old ghosts to rest and lulls old hurts to sleep.
Today I know with great humility
That I am part of God, and He of me.
Dorothea Spears
Compromise
“I hope that it will be a girl,”
The mother said, and sighed.
“Oh, no, ‘twill be a son and heir,
Said father, in his pride.
But never knew – now wasn’t it funny?
Whether is would be “Lass” or “Sonnie”
The months went by. “We’ll call her Anne,”
The hopeful mother said.
While father pictured John a man
And of his firm, the head;
Till for their virtues (or their sins)
The matter was settled, and Nurse said –“Twins!”
Newlands C.P.
Concatenation
(On the Violent Death of a President)
This repercussion is so vast
That it reverberates across the face
Of time and space,
And shakes the individual atom in its distant place.
The pattern of the past
Is shattered . . . suddenly . . .
Before the swift concatenation of this blast
That shakes our unimpregnable foundations,
Breaks the brief composure of complacent nations
And calls the individual by name.
To-morrow, now, will never be the same:
Something is broken that will not be mended,
And with the violent setting of this sun a day is ended
That will not come again.
Dorothea Spears
26.11.1963
Concert
The hall is packed, The players take their places.
The chattering subsides. A silence falls
Across the shimmering sea of upturned faces
Surrounded by a shore of listening walls,
The baton lifts. The flute, the fiddle calls.
The harpsichord. . . Or one piano sings
Alone upon the stage. . . and we have wings
Who once were wont to walk. And time stands still.
We clap our hands and cry "Encore! Encore!”
And loudly praise who wrote or played the score,
But do we ever laud the craftsman's skill,
That made the instrument to work their will?
Yet, who could play the music of a Mozart
Without the magic of the craftsman's band
That shaped the wood, the strings, the singing wires,
Without the mind that has designed and planned
To give a voice to Beethoven's desires
Or bring a Bach or Brahms at our command?
O friend, do not despise the mute unsung
Who build for beauty body and a tongue.
Dorothea Spears
Confrontation
When the self a man sees in the mirror of his mind
Comes face to face with the self that other men find
Behind the familiar facade of eyes and nose
And mouth and brain he shows wherever he goes.
These images that have travelled hand in hand
Unknowingly - when they meet will they understand,
If they meet, and will they recognize
Each other, after the first shock of surprise?
Dorothea Spears
Conservation to progress
Our basic difference is here -
That I can pause and say to time “Stand still
The while I savour this . . . and this . . .
And this.” And time stands still.
But you must always push and prod
And shout ‘Get on . . . get on . . . get on!”
I know the work of the world would never get done
By people like me. But people like you
Will never really get to know the sun
That fathered this world without your aid
And made it beautiful.
Is there not a place, my friend,
For both of us in this vast space
With all the sky above it -
You to work the world
And I to love it?
Dorothea Spears
Constantia
Watching the rape of the valley, I am glad
I had the joy of knowing her
When all her vines were growing.
You, who come to-morrow, will not guess
How fair she was, how peaceful, how serene
Before the city's passionate caress
Begat the suburb that will dispossess
The beauty that has been.
Dorothea Spears
Constantia Night
Fling the doors and windows wide
And bid this night to come inside;
Treading the world with silent feet
As soft as sorrow and more fleet,
Carrying her gift of peace.
Press the button and release
The prisoned light that bars her way
And apes the restless mood of day.
What is the perfume she distils?
The scent of the valley and the hills,
Of laden vines and blending all,
The joy of the harvest and of Fall.
Now the sun-reflecting moon
Has turned her head to grant this boon –
The velvet jewel-starred delight
Of this incomparable night.
Open the doors and windows wide
And bid this beauty come inside!
22.3.55 - Veritas, Constantia CP
Constantia swan song
When I go over the new road
At morning or night or noon
I hear the swan singing
And know that it will be soon.
And the sadness and the gladness
Of the beauty that must die
Is bitter-sweet and haunting
To the heart passing by.
Is bitter-sweet and haunting
As the swan's last flight
When I go over the new road
At morning or noon or night
Dorothea Spears
2.4.1968
Content
Next year, or the year thereafter,
Or the year after that – what matter?
Other laughter will ripple over the grass
I pass with loving feet.
Other chatter will ripple through the trees
And other flowers than these that I have loved,
Perhaps their progenies, will lift new faces
Full of happiness, inviting the caress
Of other eyes than mine
To bless and possess.
Other lips than mine will sing the praises
Of trodden paths that point to unexpected places,
Of pillared roses peering in the pool;
The wall of weeping mulberry, genuflecting to
The towering cactus, hiding in the cool
And secret garden that the ancient oak
Wraps like a jealous lover in his gallant cloak;
Of flowering shrubs who take their turn
Through singing seasons, summer, winter, spring,
To splash the sky with colour; of copper prunes to burn
Against the greys and greens that fling
Their challenge to the serried flowers filling
The eager nights and days
With colour and perfume, spilling and lifting
And drifting like incense through the garden ways.
Next year, or the year thereafter,
Or the year after that – what matter?
Other laughter will ripple over the grass…
It is enough for me that I have loved
And loitered, and laboured well to bring
This beauty into being, that I shall always be
A part of it, as those who loved before,
As it will always be a part of me
Only avarice could ask for more.
Airlie Close, Constantia, C.P.
Cornus Norman Hadden
My first love-affair with a tree –
Cornus Norman Hadden,
An unlikely name
For that close -packed mass of flowers
Flat-growing, open to the sun
On delicate slender branches
Whose pale green frills are
Layered like Victorian petticoats;
First seen in June
Bridal whiteness only faintly flushed –
I wanted to touch,
To stroke the petals
And lay my face on their smooth cushions,
But I just stood there
Open-mouthed and stupid
In my adoration.
By mid-July
Petals less thickly spaced,
More fully flushed,
Dropped as I watched
Making no sound, but each one
Dry and brown-veined
Soon as it touched the ground.
I scooped them in my hands
And tried to weep
For such short-lived perfection,
But I just knelt there
Dry-mouthed and stupid
In my grief.
Could I imprison
Could I imprison the perfume of the living rose
In a cage of words, I’d shape you a golden key.
If I could pour out words richly, as wine flows,
Liquid and rich, and red as Burgundy,
I’d pour out the passion of my heart in crimson words for thee.
If I could capture the fragrance to keep when the rose is dead
I’d put it in a bowl of words to stand beside your bed.
And, waking in the night, the fragrance of my words would float
About you, and run like nectar down your lovely throat.
Covenant
The Day of Covenant, of dedication…
It is good that sometimes we should pause,
As individuals and as a nation,
To check our code by the eternal laws.
Let us be still –
Insistent heart and clamorous mind
And wayward will –
In the resultant silence we may find
The living Light
To quench the little fires
That have misled us through the night
With their importunate desires;
The living Word,
The wisdom lost behind
Our Babel, waiting to be heard.
Individually and as a nation –
To God the Spirit and to Christ the Soul
And Man the Creature: to the Triune
Whole –
Let us make this day our dedication,
Nor be content with any meaner goal.
Covered Wagons (From PIONEERS)
Turbulent spirits brooking no denial,
Willing to wager the years God held in His Hand,
To drain at a draught Life's unpolluted phial
For the dream of a Dream, the hope of a Promised Land:
Untamed spirits, ready to shy at the touch
Of an alien hand, impatient of control;
Veering between too little and too much;
Seeking forever the unattainable goal:
The Covered Wagon is only an episode
In the immortal saga of Mankind,
The tale of the men who perish to build the road,
The song of the men who seek, nor ever find.
These are the spirits that open the doors of the world,
That brave the paths the chosen few have trod;
That dare the fate of Lucifer, hellward hurled,
To wrest the secrets out of the Mind of God.
From a Balcony in Johannesburg
Scarce twilight yet . . . The stormy sky
It is that fills the street with this strange light
In which the twinkling globes unclose and vie
With muted signs against encroaching night
Like flowers opening unsuspecting eyes
To brief unseasonable suns to shine
Against the garden with a naive surprise,
A dust of gold against a dull design
And then the rain . . . and mirrors everywhere
Transforming and reflecting! And the drums
Of thunder Quivering through the startled air!
In such a burst of splendour beauty comes,
Announced by lightning, terrifying, bright −
And Twist Street sings, and I, to see this sight!
Dorothea Spears.
Criticism
This cold wind blows forever.
There are sheltered flowers, I think, that never
Feel this freezing breath,
And some are blown to strive and thrive
Against the blast . . . For others it is death
And many an aspiring flower
Is marred and marked and blighted by this heedless needless power.
It is a colour that permeates
The purity of unadulterated colour, stains
All air with earth, mates
All fire with water, blends all balms with banes.
It is a discordant note,
Insistent and incessant,
Inhibiting the harmony within creation's throat.
It is a repetitive vibration,
Unyielding, unquiescent,
That shakes all sensitivity to its foundation.
Dorothea Spears
Cross Roads at Jericho
Jesus standing at the crossroads
Of Jericho
Deciding forever
Which road to go:
North to Galilee
And home to friends
And the beloved sea:
South – to the gate
Of Jerusalem
Where the priests wait.
Now he knows is forever.
Having made the decision
And knowing well
Where it will lead
He tries to tell the twelve
But they will not heed.
And the two, the best beloved.
Proffer their request
For seats of honour…
And the sun sinks red in the west.
Airlie Close
Crying Heart
My heart has been crying all day long
And all night through:
I have tried to comfort it with a song,
But it wants you.
I have pleaded, and coaxed, and soothed in vain
For only you can still its pain.
My heart is crying, and will not rest,
Will not be still.
I have cradled and rocked it in my breast
As mothers will,
But it will not listen, however I try
For only you can still its cry.
And you, who left it crying there,
Go blithely on – you do not care.
Cut Through Time
Cut through time at any given moment.
Analyse the substance as you-find it,
Chalk or cheese, and the unknown cause behind it,
Yesterday, tomorrow, now - what have you?
What can we say of time and Who designed it,
And are the elements that blend and blind and bind it
Different yesterday, to-morrow, now, and then?
Cut through time at any given moment -
Does it matter how or why or when?
Is all time existent always as a patterning in space,
That all inclusive entity within whose vast embrace
Everything that is takes place,
Or has been, or that will be. Is the tense
Indicative alone of where an unreality impinges on a parity of sense,
Or breaks the surface of the consciousness?
Dorothea Spears
Cycles
The secret of the cycles… If man knew
The secret of the cycles, of the tide,
Of ebb and flow – what miracles he could do,
What energies he could saddle, tame and ride!
There is a time of ebb and a time of flow
Unalterable as the night and day.
There is a time to come and a time to go,
A time for movement and a time for stay
The rise and fall of the blood, the path of the moon,
The hidden cycles of man and God and earth
And universe revolving late or soon,
The turning wheel and life and death and birth –
To find and fit your cycle is to cease
From fruitless friction, is to be a peace.