It is a requiem they're chanting
By Izak R. Crafford
[conceived at the second Nergie camp on 14 March 2020]
For: John Hood, Reynard du Plessis, Aqeel Latib, Sean Fourie, Baruch Buchling, Dedrigh Visagie and Ricardo Smit
It is a requiem they’re chanting,
where I sit on a bridge over a stream of flowing water and time;
a requiem, though they know it not perhaps, to great beauty amidst greater grime.
It is a requiem to things I know are being lost and things I know not of
and in this requiem their beautiful voices sound lone and haunting.
They’re coming into their blooming – they’re coming into their own
as green trees turn golden and the wind works to strip them stark;
I cannot, watching them, help feeling that they’ll say: “Hark!”
when they’ve reached it and find nothing but cold emptiness in the hall of the coveted throne.
I want to guard you,
I want to shield your hearts;
your value I would let be known were it but possible to bring sufficient gold in wagons and in carts,
but I cannot guard you for I am weak which I regret for they do not see you true.
I would cry for you as you cast your angels’ garments into the fire,
I would let the flood of grief tear my heart apart
but your beauty is too great to be grasped by my mortal heart
as I grasp your hands as you proceed to the pyre.
I cannot guard you,
I cannot keep you safe,
I can merely pledge my heart, my sword and my loyal hand.
It is a requiem they’re chanting,
where I sit on a bridge over a stream of flowing water and time;
a requiem, though they know it not perhaps, to great beauty amidst greater grime.
It is a requiem to beauty and a requiem to love,
A salutation to being no-one, a welcoming of loneliness.
O, captives in an unseen cage,
I pledge, as bro’ and friend, with you your war to wage.
A Note from the Author:
"I wrote this poem as the threat of the increasing spread of the virus loomed darkly, not only over South Africa, but also other parts of the world. I would not say that that prompted the writing of this poem; several factors collaborated to prompt its writing, but to say that it had no influence whatsoever would probably be to tell an untruth.
The beauty, and I do not use that word lightly, of others, the fragility of that beauty, innocence and friendship have been occupying my thoughts for a long time, both as separate and linked topics. My service on Dregeana day house’s first year committee has caused me to think quite a lot about the loss of innocence and the destruction of a certain angelic beauty which finds embodiment in the vestiges of the sweet innocence that clings to newly arrived first years. This is not meant at all scornfully; it is something that I have come to treasure and have gone to great lengths to try to describe, though I fear I have been unsuccessful up to this point. The best description I could yet formulate is: "not yet embittered by society, with high expectations mostly unbroken and still able to dream".
On the one-day first year camp that Dregeana held on the university’s sport campus, I was in a rather contemplative mood. I thought about the loss of innocence, the nature of beauty as embodied in the youthful spirit and friendship as I sat beside a little stream, listening to the flowing water, the wind stripping autumn leaves from trees and a group of first years some distance away learning to recite the Dregeana credo.
The new first years are known as Nergies in Dregeana. They are first given white shirts which, at the end of the first year camp, are burnt and then replaced with black shirts. It is this ceremony and my thoughts at that ceremony that I describe in the latter part of the poem.
I dedicated it to some first years who have come to my attention on a more personal level than most others. It is, in fact, a declaration to all my friends.
I send it in, because I think it deals with things we are all forced to think about in these times: the fragility of the human body, the brevity of all things, the value of beauty and that pleasure which comes from being there for one another. By talking about the uncaring attitude society often adopts towards the individual, I do it with the hope that we might all attempt to be just a little more caring.
I submit it with the hope that it will have some meaning for someone who comes upon it."
- Izak R. Crafford