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It’s the second day that I visit

It’s the second day that I visit
on the farm near Reivelo,
just past Vryburg.

They farm with cattle, goats,
a few sheep, muscovy ducks, turkeys
and chicken.

The scrambler bumps up and down
right through the field
and go past rocks and bushes,
while we drive along the rough field
and the hot wind
cut across my face
and there are places
where it cannot go.

It’s time to transform
young bulls to oxen,
to brand cattle
and to cut their horns
and I get a black stallion
to ride into the field.

My cousin rides in front
with a brown Arabian mare
and there are bushes
and flat slabs of rock
and small hillocks that we past
to try and round up young cattle
to the corral.

It’s nice to be a cattle herder
for a time
and to use legs and heels
and reigns,
to round up cattle in the field.

Every thing goes well until
I chase a young black bull
just to the entrance of the fold,
where it stops stubbornly
and doesn’t want to move
a feet further.

I jump out of the saddle,
fasten the reigns
to a small branch
and rush to the obstinate bull.

It stands and snorting
and stamp its feet
and when it sees me,
it rushes confused
at the horse.

That faithful horse stands firm
while the bulls horns swishes
onto the reigns
and the horse
stops that bull in its tracts,
that a piece of the bridle
breaks right off.

Then I am at the bull
and pull the reigns
out of its horns
and it walks meek
into the corral,
while in astonishment
I stand and look at that animal.

With a knee-strap
and pliers in the nose
we draw the bull to the ground
and when we shear it,
it moans like a heifer
and there’s a burning smell
that goes up from the branding iron
and I see the horns
dropp at my feet
and it’s another beast
when it stand on its feet.

poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
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