“I went searching for the way of my body. . .”, by Ingrid Jonker

I went searching for the way of my body

and could find only the strange scars in the dust

Tracks of blue wildebeest elephants and leopards

trampled across the safe secret of the white path

Oh I wanted simply to know your shadow, steenbokkie

and the near weightlessness of your fleeing shape

TRANSLATED FROM THE AFRIKAANS BY JACK COPE

From “The Lava of This Land: South African Poetry 1960-1996,” edited by Denis Hirson (TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern University Press: 328 pp., $17.95)