He lies dead now in this long street of sorrow. Unrecognizable in redemption, he awaits the final formalities that attend cessation. About him, strewn in disarrayed order, -the gifts he brought; Above him, blazing in orange-splendour mockery, -the sun he sought; In the midday he rests no longer distraught, -his hour of blood spill’s over. Some time back a happy way his boy plays on, fatherless; A few paces on his sick wife waits, husbandless, and hopelessly unaware she shall see his gentle smile no more; Nor yet the telling eyes that sparkled passion, Nor yet the secure love that’s sped- as only love can speed- beyond unreasonable reason’s shuttered door, Where there leave him in the midday, thirty years all told, -asleep in the sun.‘Death at Noon’ (UK c 1968) commemorates a man who was knocked down and killed by a car near the Somerset Hospital in Cape Town in 1964. In death he lay surrounded by the gift of oranges he had brought for his sick wife.