Cameroon

A tale of migrations,

A history of skins.

Feel the clay being shaped

In the potter’s hands,

And words like cowrie shells

Passed from brow to brow.

Curve of bronze and wood,

This is life itself.


Can you read a gorilla’s fingerprints

And decipher the turaco’s cry?

The fat world crouches in water,

A lone goliath frog.

On the black sands beneath the mountain,

Naked wrestlers tussle.

The sky poises on a whim,

An orchid from the lava.

“Come,” says the mountain’s protector ,

“But take care not to remove anything”.


All the birds of Cameroon

Take me up in their wings;

The white-breasted nigrita

And the chattering cisticola,

The olive-bellied sunbird,

The red-vented malimbé...

Come,brown illadopsis,

Shining drongo,

Mountain boubou,

Willcock’s honeyguide

And Bonelli’s warbler!

Come, variable indigobird!