red grass

                                                             
a swish of redgrass as far as the eye can leak
I crawl through the wire like someone seduced - heart in the throat -
and it sings silklike it sings redgrass singing into the sky
strutting seedpods in rust and tawny
little grasshoppers splutter
and it rustles it lisps in ankledeep shrub
it crackles silk and feeler signals
lightfooted to that side
a redgrasspath a redgrasslightfootpath's halfbody fragrance
at ground level sprouting tiny shoots
breathing I stand human in the first clump erect

I adore Themeda triandra the way other people adore God

 - Antjie Krog, from Down to my Last Skin (Random House, 2000)