rainwater destroys
that by which he was known,
there is rain
in a dead man's footsteps.
IRVING FELDMAN
In
Theme Park America,
the mugger raises up his hand
for no reason
in theme park america
every tree is a museum
every leaf a monument
each flower a flower idea
this slum a garden of garbages
the world a world still swelling with
its first inhalation of eternity
everything is larger farther apart
the squalor spacious clearer
Translated
by
Stephen Watson*
"Translator's Note: This translation is based on the
IXam
texts originally transcribed
by
w.
H. Bleek and Lucy Lloyd in Mowbray, Cape Town, SOllth Africa, in the 1870s,
now in the archives of the University of Cape Town. Aware that the
IXam
and their
culture were being exterminated from the part of the northwestern Cape that was their
last refuge, Bleek conducted extensive interviews with the
IXam,
in particular with
three bushmen who lived with him for several years, before returning to their ancestral
lands in the Kenhardt district of the northwestern Cape. Bleck's work was carried on
after his death by Lucy Lloyd, who saw to the eventual publication of
Specimells of
Bushmall Folklore
(1911) in which literal versions of the poems appeared.
