The poem was read aloud during the recent protest, held by deeply concerned citizens, outside parliament, against fracking in the Karoo. A man began a slow, deep chant alongside the words of the poem.  Another happened to have a tambourine with him, and  this he shivered to give the sound of stars. Cars, driving by, hooted in short blasts like trumpets.

“Oh my sister, Karoo.
I lie upon your brown ground
while the stars pour upon us,
like the white milky sap of succulents.
The little fox scurries, fans his ears,
listening as I promise you, sister,
to safeguard,
to let no harm befall,
for I love all that grows and breathes from you.

But the Oil Men come in a phalanx
and I cannot stop them,
for they are with Bankers and Miners and Investors and Politicians.
I carry no weapons.
Only my poems.
Oh my sister, Karoo.
My sweet sister.”

Photograph  by Don Pinnock Oh my sister, Karoo by Patricia Schonstein
(After Eugène Marais’s The Desert Lark)

http://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/News/news/Say-No-to-Fracking-in-the-Karoo/