Karoonag – Coenie de Villiers

Listen to a recording of Karoonag here by the Johannesburg Queer Chorus:

Translation to English:

When the night buttons up its jacket over the field/plains,

and the zodiac lets its shine lie right up against the scorpion [constellation];

as the twins [Gemini] and the crab [Cancer], [astrological] companions over Beaufort West,

and the moon pours its cup over Graaff-Reinet.

Do you smell cat-bush and kambro [indigenous plants], when it rains in the Little Karoo.

My Hantam wind. My adopted child [or ‘foundling’ / ‘cherished child’]. Tonight.

In the morning when it turns blue, and the amber clouds stir,

as the sun pushes its first light, over the “bitterboela” [a local shrub/shrubland],

as the train whistles at Noupoort, and it vanishes into the wind,

and a tumbleweed [tolbos] gets stuck somewhere against the ridge/hill.

Do you smell cat-bush and kambro, when it rains in the Little Karoo.

My Hantam wind. My adopted child. Tonight.