Don't tell them we're going or they'll want to come too, and: S.o.b.
- Don't tell them we're going or they'll want to come too, and: S.o.b.
Don't tell them we're going or they'll want to come too
There were six of us,two boys and four men,blood-washed Christians each,and the time was right,as the Lord had revealed in his wisdom,for us to go and fastand pray in the mountainsIn a dark cave burdens were laiddown alongside backpacksWe knelt on the stony groundFor a day and a night we wept andreverently petitioned Jesus Christ toremember us on the day of his promised return
The following day we made our waydown the mountainsidewith lightened hearts,with thoughts as pureas mountain streamsOn the way back home westopped at a roadside 7-Eleven where the pastorpurchased for each of us a pint of milk,with which to break our day-long fast
We huddled around the big pink station wagonnext to the road and laughed and jokedThe boys were allowedto make gentle sport of the menwhose moustaches were dripping with creamThe men felt a little youngerThe boys felt a little wiserIf someone walked byIt would be easy for them to seechildren of the Lord [End Page 31] The comedown, like a book out ofthe Old Testament, was brutal and epic
Brother Adams had a strokePastor Isaacs had a stroke and diedBrother Paul had a strokeand after ten years spent working for Jesus,resigned and went back to being a drunkWhich, in turn, made John lose faith in his fatherand that tested his faith in GodBrother Williams lost faith in Cape Townwhere life, without family, was hardHe and his wife packed up and went home,went back to McgregorWhile I pondered faith and doubtso that day by day, and bit by bitlike a miracle of multiplicationI reasoned awaymy own salvationBut I still think about that dayAnd how, as we made our way downthat narrow mountain trail,and as the sun came through the clouds,like thin white fingers opening a heavy curtain,I thought:God is going to come for uson a day like this
Sometimes I feel sorry for usI can see how we must really have lookedAnd how the angels must have laughedat the country bumpkinsThe last people to find outJesus had come a long time agoand had left again, without us
S.o.b.
When slavery endedin America a slave gotforty acres and a muleto start his life withChristopher Robin hada hundred acres anda beara tigeran owla pigleta kangarooa heffalumpand a mulejust to play withAnd it remains a mystery to youwhy we hate you
Silly old boer
Nathan Trantraal, thirty-three, is a cartoonist and an award-winning Afrikaans poet whose poetry has been translated into English and French. André Trantraal, thirty-eight, is a cartoonist and writer. Their weekly cartoon strip, The Richenbaums, appears in the Cape Times. Their comic art has been exhibited in Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Cape Town, and they have published the graphic novel Drome Kom Altyd Andersom Uit (Tafelberg Publishers, 2008) and the comic book Coloureds (Underdog Comics, 2010). A second cartoon strip, Ruthie, about a black family living in apartheid-era South Africa, ran for a year in the national newspaper Rapport. Having grown up in the townships of Mitchell's Plain and Bishop Lavis, the brothers are acquainted with the social conditions and the ordinary human face of people who call these places home. Much of their work is written in the Cape Town Afrikaans vernacular and they are pioneers in recording, through their poetry and cartoons and comic book stories, this particular orthography.
