Zulu Girl by Roy Campbell (1901-57) When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder, Down where the sweating gang its labour plies, A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder Unslings her child tormented by the flies. She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled By thorn-trees: purpled with the blood of ticks, While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled, Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks, His sleepy mouth plugged by the heavy nipple, Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds: Through his frail nerves her own deep languors ripple Like a broad river sighing through its reeds. Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes An old unquenched unsmotherable heat- The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes, The sullen dignity of their defeat. Her body looms above him like a hill Within whose shade a village lies at rest, Or the first cloud so terrible and still That bears the coming harvest in its breast. Zulu Girl by Roy Campbell (read by Tom OBedlam) https://youtube/watch?v=WMgbIB0MLGo
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 19:31:33 +0000