Notes on a Visit

1.
Arrival
I landed at Jan Smuts at noon;
A cousin met, and drove me home;
The early summer smiled
Where I was born, and am exiled;
Green willows wept, jacarandas
Blew over windy verandahs
While morning-glory crept
Up pergola and parapet
Whose engardened villas slant
White roofs below Witwatersrand,
The suburbs of an earlier time
Once gimcrack, now uncertain.
Uncertainty's what I read
Upon those tatty and beloved
Arcades of bottle-stores and fruit
...