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wild fires on Table Mountain

	spread their ugly flames onto

		the University centre of learning

	old books in the ancient library

smouldering ashes of bygone wisdom

student quarters burnt just the same

	nature does not discriminate or does it

		when readers fall prey to the elements

	of destruction in temporal knowledge

that some things will never be the same

scorched they gather what was not to be

	reach out to quaint philosophers for truths

		but the pages grant furious fodder 

	link tinder wood they light up for once

they have the limelight in times of ignorance

some say at least it was not the colonialists' fault

	flint stones made radiant sparks long before

		and the Chinese invented firecrackers

	way before the British doped them in opium

a sterling idea of potent delirious subjugation 

others weigh in and claim it was provenance

	or politician’s corruption and underfunding

		of the local emergency services or even

	lack of water and evidence of climate change

but one way or other resides some Apartheid

it was Heinrich Heine who pointed out clearly

	that once they burn books humans will follow

                and it may have been more than a cigarette

	that ignited the bush veldt as a reminder

while conspiracy theories keep infernos alive


21st April 2021

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