AOSIS OpenJournalswww.openjournals.netinfo@openjournals.nethttp://www.literator.org.za0258-22792219-8237Patricia G. Maritz1
1Department of Philosophy, University of Zululand, South Africa
Patricia G. Maritzpatricia.maritz@gmail.comPrivate Bag X1001, KwaDlangezwa 3886, South Africa108235110.4102/lit.v35i1.1082Maritz, P.G., 2014, ‘The Karoo – the Summerfield House’, Literator 35(1), Art. #1082, 1 page. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/lit.v35i1.1082
© 2014. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Where the wild mustard and dandelion dream
green and taciturn,
 is the forlorn place and an echoing room of fancy.
Quietly opening and shutting doors release
scene upon scene of
wallpaper falling away
in strips of pale flowers, 
inlaid roses in milky glass windows, 
oil lamps violet and amber
in tarnished glass mirrors… There, long shadows like misshaped scarecrows
glide along the walls,
half-forgotten forms 
flitting indistinctly by,
bearing stacks of sheets 
warm from the press of a coal-heated iron.In the chamber of mauve taffeta, 
crystal and camphor,
white enamel pails gleam,
damask and yellow rose petals curl, 
and like loosening tresses fall into a drawer of gladiolus lace lying 
ethereal and unconfiding, 
as a prism’s refracting light 
shines saffron among its folds.Figures defined by the dark,
softened by the sympathetic light,
rest open-mouthed on the pink  chaise longue;
in the cold moon’s glance
frosty stones and arid flats lie bleak and inhospitable;
a bouquet of fleece, feed and lanoline
 lingers on the air …In the interval between
the sighing and surging of
the windmill,
between the shifting pepper tree
and the fall of night,
sound the whirling wheels of a distant
train hurrying through the dark.