Brown sands of the Ténéré desert:
The heat can leach all moisture from a body
In just a few hours.
Bones of Nigersaurus and Sarcosuchus
Are stripped bare by the winds...
Human skeletons are emerging:
Skull fragments push up through the sand,
Jawbones clench near-full sets of teeth,
A child’s tiny hand has floated up, intact.
Here are the potsherds,beads and arrowheads,
The axheads and grindstones they fashioned,
The fishhooks and harpoons,
All from green volcanic rock.
Bones of crocodiles,hippos,turtles,fish and clams.
Bones of antelope and giraffe.
Millennia ago, a wobble in the earth’s axis
Caused the monsoons to shift north
And brought new rains to this desert,
Verdant grasslands spread everywhere,
Life thrived with fabulous profusion.
The rocks are painted with herds
Of ostriches,cattle and elephants.
Here a woman lies on her side,
Facing two children’s skeletons,
Her arm bones reaching out to them,
A cluster of disarticulated finger bones
Strewn between them,where once
Their hands had been clasped.
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