Carefree children run in striped sneakers across a busy street,

call to one another in summer's dusty heat.

Others piss here and there,

Adults sit on the sidewalk

and sell vegetables, apples and red pears.

Oh, let me take a tram

from the goldmine's sand of Wemmerpan

when Rosettenville corner was a corner.

I pass my school coupon

to the man hitting the gong,

The driver smiles.

Joubert Park is miles away,

The tram is clean and bright.

A uniformed attendant waits

as the tram stops at the tall gate,

The park stays open a long time

from ten to eight.

Lined by tall maples,

a spiked itchy-ball falls from above.

Oh, this is my park, where I love to stroll, there is a dassie, there a mole,

a Whydah flaps its tail against a telephone pole.

Oh for faraway Joubert Park

with sprays and gushing fountains

splashing animals of Noah's ark,

as cosmopolitans talk of times of then and then while I settle down and converse with Dad and Uncle Ben of books and what we've read of Guy de Maupassant and Gorky, his travels in Russia as he saw white maples of winter parks and heard the linnets and the larks.

Young men and girls stroll arm in arm

on what was once Joubert's mielie farm,

a masterful art gallery next door.

who could want or wish for more,

to listen to Yiddish Italian and Greek,

and playing behind the palms,

running children in hide-and-seek;

men playing Black Jack and Canasta

and the one who trumps shouts to his partner

and tickeys and sixpences pass from hand to hand in those mellow days

before the devaluation of the rand;

evening silently sets in with sunset reds on tall Hillbrow walls.

No rush away. Children still at play.

No evening scare;

Suddenly it's a lit-up fair.

My Rosettenville tram

rosetted with evening lights,

its coppery sound winds up

to balconies above the city heights

Before the white man's pride was gone.

Solly Aronowosky's orchestra

in the park;

violins and violas and a brass band,

drinking wines under the oaks

smoking thick Havanas and making jokes,

sipping Cabernet, curried sosaties on a beer tray.

Strains of music floating around

themes of Chausson and Faure.

Yawning to leave on my tram to Wemmerpan, knowing the park will sleep safely in the arms of Wendy and Peter Pan as goldfish glide between lily stems under a silver moon's reflection.

The city hall clock strikes the hour

and the fountain spray wets the flowerbeds and the winding walkway.

Sleep, my city, my birthplace

City of my youth

Pity ......pity.

December 1999

Dr. Ben Krengel was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1933, where he still lives. He is a doctor at an East Rand hospital where he is active in the treatment of AIDS patients, and researches sinusitis and dietary conditions. He is also the gabbai of the 80-year-old Rosettenville synagogue, in the southern suburbs.