Surprised by misty blue mountainsSilhouetted against a sun-scorched blue –
Dusk hanging like a swarming host
Heat firing back at my body
Relieved by sudden ghostly eddies of cool air –I emerge high above the Nile, enthralled.
Relieved by sudden ghostly eddies of cool air –I emerge high above the Nile, enthralled.
The moped’s tyres grind and churn to a halt
As sand and murram skid aside in
gritty protest.
I sense …….. an eternal waiting – for hope of resurrection,
For someone to love this land, its forlorn longing
“Kiss our soils to life, charm our skies open;Come sing for the rain; release Eden once again”.
Is this really silence? The nearest I’ve heard!
But for the undertone chatter of mousebird and weaver
The cry of kite and coucal – and always the hens!
Yet children’s cries seep through bush and teak.
Shadows fight the piercing sinews of golden sunset
The track ahead melts in the intense shadow and light.
Flicker, flash, flicker, flicker, strobe light and dark
Interplaying through boughs and grasses like the staccato rhythms
Of the beats of Africa, drumming through a sun-silked fringe
Playing out a dying refrain of life still not nurtured
Nor yet embraced.
Will someone love this land – answer its cry?
Will someone love this land – answer its cry?
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes”
(Its dead sobbing below for redemption, for hope to arise)
16 years of peace out of 46.
Hatred and cursing
Lies and shame, confusion and violence –
All smouldering beneath me, its victims embraced by dirt;
Feeding the mango and teak
Speargrass and Spear Sorghum
Dust to leaf, ashes to fruit
Is this the only redemption – the only cycle?
Can crackling cries from bleached bones not find a hearer?
Can we yet cradle life amongst the thorn and flame trees of Kiri?
A child’s wave and cry of exultation at the glimpsed white stranger
Lifts my heart to soar again. Hope hovers by.
Stephen Waldron
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