warthogs on the lawn
to be English in Africa:
beating back the bush
sipping tea and quinine
keeping your garments bleached white
despite red clay and grey dust
serving Her Majesty
a world away
stripping another tribe’s land
to twist the sinews of war
admiring the steel span view
(naturally, not the falls)
all while determinedly peering past
the warthogs on the lawn
Cedar’s actually a year old in this photo 🙂
Cedar at the Sink
Cedar offers to do some dishes
runs warm water
and green soap
over white bowls
carefully lays things tipped over
on a silver ridged drainboard
and smiles at having helped
he’s 9 now but suddenly I see him back at 3
standing on the kitchen chair
with its back to the sink
wearing a corduroy apron
splashing cups in great drifts of suds
pouring and dumping and
scooping some more
overjoyed by the play
of water running over his hands
making things clean
Moonbow, Victoria Falls
your eyes make the best cameras
the guide says
somewhat apologetically
he knows how it will go –
a swarm of eager people
staring at the black faces of their phones
blinding each other with impotent blasts of flash
fiddling with ineffective light setting sliders
while chiding the machines in their palms
how can you not see that?
aimlessly pointing at one torrent then the next –
maybe this one is white enough
or maybe an unseeing video would
do at least the sound justice
(played back later,
it is the epitome of white noise)
oh, my awestruck misguided friends
(including me, with my eleven photos
of a seeming void)
if ever there were a time for poetry
the moment’s at hand
dark shaggy forest
moon cooling from ember-orange to frozen white
whisper that turns to deluge
mist alternately brushing your forehead with feather kisses
or spraying your crown with spittle
the pale white arc
so much smoother than all the noisy jets
curving like Diana’s bow
leading your eye straight into
the frothing maw
then dancing ahead next time you watch your step
and that’s just overlook No. 1
of 7 we’ll be traipsing through tonight
breathing in frangipani
turning a misty colonial memory
into treasure the Copperbelt can’t melt
Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl
on a bare branch
directly along our path
in the last sunset light a camera needs
beneath the blue-white glow
of a nearly-full moon
he perches casually
as if we’ve conjured him
as if there were anything else we needed
as if we hadn’t been awed enough
our pink eyelids blink back at his
and our jaws hang open
our lips forming a wowed o
for owl
