Eugène Nielen Marais
The Dance of the Rain
Eugène N. Marais
Song of the
fiddler, Jan Konterdans, of the Great Desert
Oh, the
dance of our Sister!
First, over
the hilltop she slyly peeps,
and her eyes
are shy;
and she
laughs softly.
From afar
she beckons with one hand
her armlets
shimmer and her beads sparkle;
she calls
softly.
She tells
the winds about the dance
and she
invites them, since the yard is wide and the wedding large.
The big game
rush up from the plains,
they gather
on the hilltop,
their
nostrils flare wide
and they
gulp the wind;
and they
crouch, to see her delicate tracks in the sand.
The tiny
ones, deep underground, hear the shuffle of her feet,
and they
crawl closer softly singing:
“Our Sister!
Our Sister! You came! You came!”
And her
beads shake,
and her copper
bangles shine in the vanishing sun.
On her
forehead rests the vulture’s fiery plume;
she steps
down from the heights;
she spreads
the dusty kaross with both arms;
the wind’s
breath is taken away.
Oh, the
dance of our Sister!
(Translated by Johann
de Lange)
