Book cover: Supplied. Image Composite: Maverick Life. 
In this self-translated selection from his first two collections, Odendaal brings a quiet clarity to poems that navigate personal inheritance, relationships, and everyday life.
His work is measured and thoughtful, whether confronting the weight of ancestral history, the uncertainties of love, or the complex realities of contemporary South Africa. These are poems that gesture inward and outward, tracing the threads that bind us to one another and to the landscapes we inhabit and return to.
***
when the world nears its end
and winter rain occupies bloemfontein
I listen while the muted day
replays against my eyelids
to the waves of raindrops on zinc
chanting protests
how many litres has the sky
poured out onto this land?
why is the soil still so red?
weak acid patters away cars and cables
the clouds strike thunderbolt retributions
drops of rain salve my neighbour’s bare feet on his stoep showing him what forgiveness feels like
how many litres has the sky
poured out onto this land?
why is the soil still so red?
I hear the water’s breath
si!ing through the photons of streetlights
the tired dance on middle-class roofs
the trickling and trampling in gutters
the whirlpools down drains
swallowing all sound
how many litres has the sky
poured out onto the land?
why is the soil still so red?
elsewhere
beyond the rain
another me stands
cupped ears under quiet stars waiting with the land
for the wind to turn
DM
a corpse is also a garden by Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal is published by Uhlanga.