Synapse

Synapse

Antjie Krog

Human & Rousseau

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THE YARD

the yard

yard² n.

1. the ground that immediately adjoins or surrounds a house, public building, etc. 2. a

courtyard. 3. an outdoor enclosure for exercise, as by students or inmates. 4. an outdoor

space surrounded by a group of buildings, as on a college campus. 5. an enclosure for livestock. 6. an enclosure within which any work or business is carried on (often used in combination): a lumberyard. 7. an outside area used for storage, assembly, etc. 8. a system of parallel tracks, crossovers, switches, etc. where rail cars are made up into trains and where rolling stock is kept when not in use or when awaiting repairs. 9. the winter pasture or browsing ground of moose and deer. — v.t. 10. to put into, enclose or store in a yard.

[bef. 900: ME yerd, OE geard enclosure, c. OS gard, OHG gart, ON garthr, Go gards;

akin to L hortus garden, OIr gort sowed field; cf. garden]

Source: Random House Webster’s College Dictionary ([1991] 1995, p. 1544)

If I’m a man,

then I must have a farm;

and if I have a farm,

then I must have a wife;

and if I have a wife,

then I must have a child;

and if I have a child,

then I must have a maid;

fragments: Anonymous

Woof – it’s Japhta’s soft bark,

he’s startled out of his slumber,

for there at the wall the gate

made its little squeaking sound

and slowly across the yard

a wanderer walks up the path.

Jan FE Celliers

She tells the winds of the dance

and invites them to come, for the yard is wide and the wedding grand.

                                                                Eugène Marais

the whole yard is filled with him:

there where the ploughs glimmer,

I see the ox-great shadow stir

and hear some iron thing murmur.

NP van Wyk Louw

1.

‘I want a grave from which to turn away’

the hearse comes slowly through the frostwhite winter veld

inside the pine coffin bobs        my father’s sons

and grandsons        handkerchiefs around their hands

lift the coffin with ropes and carry it to the grave

that took three days to chisel out of

dolerite                an icy south wind cuts

our song: Nearer, nearer

my brothers cry as if torn apart        death

suddenly shoves us in the back        O Lord thou hast searched me

and known me        freshly shorn a sheepskin falls

over the coffin        the minister reads

the Old Translation as my mother ordered

lay your hand        part of what I am how I belong is sinking

into this merciless stone ground.        forever gone

the goshawk’s being        the lonely intimate gardener

of my skeleton        against the concept ‘Pa’ the verges

of death scrabble        his coffin grates past iron slopes

as his life was so his death        his bewildered

offspring stand where we feel we don’t belong

sustained by natal ground in which we have bloomed

for generations        no one could confirm our place        wounded

we remain        scheming        suffocating with reproach un-

charitably we tread mythological water        a silence spreads

over us and the brown willow branches        swaying

in the icily shimmering Free State light it’s as if

a sighing thing pours from us        from our Afrikaner

conscience        our languageness        our whiteness

apprehensive        bold        a resigned dilapidation

inconsolable is our incapacity                with heads bowed we

pray while my mother’s dry and determined eyes demand:

‘make sure that you cover him yourselves’ carefully my brothers scatter

a bag of river sand over the coffin I see Hendrik Nakedi in

one of Pa’s old corduroy jackets coming forward

there’s earth in his calloused hand: ‘you’re leaving me Matjama’

he whispers and then groans as if bursting

into the darkness of death: ‘tsamaya hantle Ntate Moholo!’

brothers-in-law sons-in-law grandsons nephews start covering the grave

but it’s hard work and none of them is at home with a spade

my brother raises his head to catch his breath        a black

man stretches out his hand it’s Kapi Pa’s tractor driver

my brother looks at him for a few seconds and

hands over the spade my mother’s weeping becomes audible

we wanted to be with him when he was taken from us

deep in the night alone and as always without

disrupting anything        light as a prayer whole and humble

as a feather but while he perhaps delicately etched arrives

between ancestors and stardust we hesitate        awk-

ward in our concern        as ever shy before his

gentleness his palms on our shoulders        through the years

he restored us calmly with stories

that he ploughed open family trees that he kept

in order        he was our hold-onto man our maker of

peace our go-between        our thin-skinned antelope heart

the unnoticed clasp of our family belt

he’s gone and how loosely we’re drifting already        whatever

we wanted        each sorrowful word

each forgiveness each gesture of love that we wanted

to offer is too late        jesus Pa send something        anything

that says you do feel it: the adamantly unstaunchable

keelhauling nature        of grief

2.

after her husband was buried

great-greatgrandmother Betjie from Middenspruit

had him dug up again

and dressed in a different suit

‘suddenly I can understand it,’ my mother said

‘all I can think about is to dig

into that mound of earth and

keep going until I reach your father

until I reach where he is and

lift him up by his shoulders

the irrefutable thereness of him’

3.

3 december 1861

when on that day

he spread out

the gold coins

in payment for the farm

JH Boshof’s

little table

broke

when after that

he signed the purchase contract

laid down the pen

Paul Johannes Delport

knew:

now he was

a Baas

4.

[land] – in brackets untranslatable

they say that Greatgrandmother Helena Susanna Delport

owned [ ] all the land between Kroonstad and Renosterspruit

after her husband died she remained there with two daughters

one of them my grandmother Anna Elisabeth

they say she married a middle-aged fellow Hennie Geldenhuys

[ ] so that the land could be worked [ ]

they say she was a diabetic [ ]

and one day she slipped into a coma

her two daughters came immediately from their respective

households [ ] to prepare for the worst

[ ] they say that within a day or two the first ampoule of insulin

arrived at old Dr Dykman’s consulting room

straight away he rushed out to the farm on the Kroonstad/

Viljoenskroon road to test the new cure

and on the way [ ] [ ] he rode past

the local attorney on the dusty farm road

they say immediately after the first injection

Grandma Lena showed signs of recovery

when she was shakily drinking some water she asked where the ink

on her right middle finger had come from

‘ask your husband’ they said

her daughter, my granny, said

the next morning she went to town to cancel

the will that made over all the land to Stepgrandfather Hennie

[ ] [ ] sixteen years later she died [ ]

Grandpa Hennie had usufruct until his death

after a year with his new wife [ ] he moved to town [ ]

he said Grandma Lenie cooks soap in the yard at night they said

5.

a story

we grew