Death at Noon

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.