Lina Spies. Vertaal in Engels deur Helize van Vuuren.
A Paternoster for South Africa
Lord, hallow all the names
Of all the children of the land
Of them
who baked mud cakes from his earth,
chased rock rabbits in his ravines,
trod wool in his kraals.
I watched breathlessly:
black torsos bent over powerless animals
and sharp scissors which made me wait,
frightened of the slips, the blood, the pain.
But the careful black hands
seldom cut deeper than the white
and I could hand out the tokens
as the worker is worthy of his wages
according to the number he liberated
to wander lightly on the summer hills.
But the bales have long ago been sown closed and sent away,
the wool oil washed from my feet,
my legs no longer lame from treading.
Forgive us, the forgetful ones, the rested ones,
As we forgive them, the boisterous ones,
who never entered a kraal,
never rode a reed horse
or walked barefoot,
and Lord, see our hands:
look, around my white pulse is a bracelet of grass;
my dark playmate plaited it artfully
as I could never do…
To You belong the land
and the sun
and the sheep of his pastures
Give us loving hands, oh Lord,
and will You cut with care the inhibiting cloak
so that no unnecessary blood is spilled
and hand out Yourself the tokens
– Lina Spies “’n Paternoster vir Suid-Afrika”, Digby Vergenoeg, 1971)
(translated by Helize van Vuuren)