Day's End In Enniedorp
A day in June.
Tuesday.
Week’s worst day!
Twenty to five.
A wintry sun,
Low in the sky,
Casts long shadows,
Emits no warmth.
I’m in a dorp
With tired shops,
Bank and church,
GPO and a Court.
Tucked together
Along a street,
With bumpy tar
And dusty holes.
Now and then
A small bakkie
Clatters past
Carrying ‘boys’.
A thin veil
Of dust rises
And wafts
To where I sit.
On a bench,
On the stoep,
Of the old
‘Royal’ Hotel.
As I sit I see
No hustle or bustle;
Just a person or two
Moving listlessly by.
Across the road,
An Algemene Handelaar
Stocks and sells
Assorted goods.
On its stoep
Amongst other things,
An ancient plough
And three-legged pots.
An adult ‘boy’
Shuffles out,
Begins to take
The things inside.
Exiting the Bottle Store
Ou Cronje sways out
Sipping a half-jack
In a paper packet.
Church clock
Marks the ‘quarter to’
With a dull
Ding, … dong, …ding,
Enough already!
No waiting till five.
At other stores
Doors begin to close.
Doef-doef-doef !
A tractor bobs past
Pulling a trailer
Loaded with bags.
From Rita’s Fashions
The assistant emerges,
Pulls on knitted gloves,
And heads for home.
Three youngsters
From rugby practise
Sidle past with the
Scrunch of studded boots.
From the Kafee
Two clients emerge;
Half a loaf each
And bottles of Fanta.
Three farmers,
Wearing shorts,
Enter the bar
For brandy and coke.
A car trundles by.
Again there’s dust,
From unfixed holes
That pepper the tar.
Quiet returns.
Sun is lower.
Shadows longer.
In Enniedorp.
Now wisps of smoke,
From chimney tops,
Signal day’s end
And a wintry night.
Copyright © Keith Beavon | Year Posted 2016
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