Day
5: Welbedacht to Bokkveldskloof
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| Photo: Galeo Saintz |
Not
long after we've left camp, but long enough for the water basin to no
longer freeze over again once your hands are washed, we pass the pool
near Driehoek. It is not an easy pool to simply walk past, as we
discovered last year. I will not be the one to suggest it this time,
but I am very happy when Linda does. A day that starts with a swim in
a pool like this, can only become one of the very best of days.
Over
the river we gather to marvel at a dung beetle. It doesn't so much as
pause in its industriousness, does not for a moment hesitate to
question the value of its work. At Eikeboom, something
in the soil at my feet catches my eye. It is a coin, worn and thin -
a 1942 South African tikkie, with a protea on the front. I wonder at
how long it has lain buried there. I wonder at what brought it to the
surface for me to find.
All
of this feeds into the poem that comes to me as we walk silently up
the track into Tierkloof,
past the unseen plaque to the young
man who drowned in the stream, a foot jammed between boulders, his
friends helpless around him and the river rising ever so slowly up
and up, past the old stone leopard trap that gave the kloof its name
from a time when our relationship with those graceful predators was
different. The beautiful track with its dry-stone walls has the
quality of a labyrinth about it, a journey of repeated arcs this way
and then that. This way and then that we are carried, slowly and
gently to a vantage point from where to look into our lives. The
tikkie in my pocket and the invite that someone accompany us on this
walk, reminds me of my mother. I know she would have loved this
place.
I
finish my poem as the kettle boils on the little cement bridge with
the stream rushing below it through water plants of the most
brilliant green. Morning tea. But it is only much later, near the end
of the day, that I read it. For I have something else to share on
this walk - a place, not a poem.
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| Photo: Galeo Saintz |
I
love the anticipation of leading people into this place, the boulders
they must bow under, the darkness removed from the sun's glare, the
quiet, their wondering, "Is this it?". And then the centre.
The sacred coming together of rock and cedar. Just as it is.
The
sun is already behind Sneeuberg, and Bokkveldskloof is in deep shadow
by the time I close my day with another icy swim. Then in the
darkness after supper, I am ready to read my morning's poem:
The
paths that you walk into life will outlive you,
they
are what the earth will remember you by,
they
are your genes scattered like ashes
across
the great landscapes
in
memory of your brief passing,
your
wild oats.
Be
mindful of where you tread.
Others
have walked them before you,
but
it is you that turned the stone
that
sent the small, tail-less creature scuttling for other cover.
It
is your weight that gently bruised the buchu bush
and
released it oily scent into the hot, still air.
It
was a drop of cool, sweet water
from
your scooped hand
that
wet the stones at your feet.
Your
winter morning breath
that
whitened the air before you.
Be
mindful of where you tread.
The
paths that you walk into life will outlive you,
Others
have walked them before you,
and
still others will follow.
Be
mindful of where you tread.
Make
your passing like the bright sparks of protea seeds,
released
into a fire blackened landscape,
alight with the certainty of the very first bird song,
to
anticipate the dawn,
bequeath
each step to the path behind you,
age,
like the cedar
that deepens its perfume with time,
attune
yourself, like the nightjar,
to
the dark.
Be
mindful of where you tread.
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