It is all in this dust, these stones.
All you need to know.
Whiteout of sere scrub and shrivelled trees.
Emir of lost moments,
Sweat dripping in my eyes,
I reel as begging lepers
Circle me, all bleeding stumps
And weeping sores...
The harmattan fleeces the earth,
Red dust eclipses the sun,
Cracks treetrunks and sears the throat,
Burrows into the aching brain...
Slow Arabic ceremony
Of days, thoughts, lives,
Slippery mergings
Veiled like women...
“What is written is written.
We die when God wills.”
How many coded tongues
Are spoken here,
Flamboyant dialects
Guarding their secrets?
Head wrapped in kadmul,
I sit against an acacia,
Watching shooting stars
In the night sky.
The camel’s throat is slit,
It tumbles to the ground,
Choking on its own blood,
And is hacked into pieces,
So succulent and sweet.
What has been, what is and what
Will be, all merge into one,
And how will anyone know the difference?
Africa has been with me always,
Before I even knew its name.
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