Pages covered in flour

HERE ARE THE PAGES STILL COVERED IN FLOUR

Here’s the recipe for coffee biscuits, still covered in a little flour

Meringues and Koeksisters and yummy Swiss Roll,

Everything sweet, savoury and sour.

Here’s the recipe borrowed from a friend,

Nothing those days was sugar-free,

Lemon marmalade and Hertzog cookies,

(some said Jan Smutsies when invited to tea.)

Favourite pages, stained over years

Now I smell them, and taste the tears

As I remember licking bowl and beater

Nothing more vivid, nothing sweeter.

Fast come the memories of learning the trick

Of rolling the dough, “not too thin, nor too thick.”

Of copping a wallop with the same wooden spoon

That mixed in the flavours and kept us in tune.

Here’s the recipe for happy days,

Cornflour still sticks to the well-turned pages

Here’s the smell of a happy childhood

That will not go in a thousand ages

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