ROBERT LEADER
OVERLAND THROUGH AFRICA has been on hold for a while because my co-author Tim Baily has other commitments. However, here in the meantime is another piece of Africa for you to enjoy.
IMAGES OF AFRICA
Rain-rich green hills fading into blue,
Deep purple-blue where the forest meets the sky,
A silent haze, an opaque cloud,
Where the secret heart of Africa might lie.
There will be shadows there,
Day-shadows darker than night,
Lost in darkening green,
Shadows upon shadows,
And wild things barely seen,
A dappled flank, smooth scales, or ivory sheen,
Fleeting through a broken shaft of light.
But here --
A red dirt road,
Where bright rain pools lie,
Ribbons of orange fish scales,
Winding through the green hills,
That soothe the burned and aching eye.
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And all along the rattling road,
On either side,
Clearings cut out and won from the hungry green,
Spaces to plant,
P1aces to build,
Thatched native huts,
With neat fences of plaited palm fronds,
The owners sitting on their beds or stools,
To pound corn,
Or just enjoy the humid cool of evening.
Everybody waves,
Gnarled grandfathers,
With grey-bristled chins.
Shy maids with spiked hair,
And black breasts bare.
Children with pot bellies,
And bare bottoms.
Darkest Africa,
Is all friendly pink hands,
And white teeth.
.....................................
At dawn and dusk,
The women walk in single file,
By the roadside,
With calabashes of water balanced on their heads,
And black babies balanced on their hips,
Smartly erect like Paris models,
Filled with natural pride.
Clothed in gay print cottons,
Bracelets, nose rings and smiles,
Smiles, smiles, smiles.
Everybody waves.
In the fields -~
Black backs bowed double,
Hauling water,
Or digging at the red mud earth,
With a crude adze,
Old men with limbs like knotted black cord
Old women with slack breasts,
Sucked dry by children and the sun.
But still they raise their heads,
And smile.
Everybody Waves.
Here in the villages,
There are no world politics,
And no politicians.
Everybody waves.
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A flame tree,
A burst of petalled fire,
Burning in the sun.
A Vermillion jewel,
With a million facets,
Of flowered light.
................................................
The Congo forest drowns all,
A strangled seabed of ash-silver trunks,
Towering into green.
Leaves of green,
Branches of green,
Vines of green.
Dark green,
Bright green,
Shining green,
Shadowed green;
Fairy grottoes of green,
Vast, disappearing caverns of green,
Cathedrals of green,
A galactic infinity of green.
The rains descend,
Deluge upon deluge,
Falling out of black thunder,
And lightning-split skies.
And then --
WET GREEN.
Glistening and glittering,
Scintillating in webs of liquid magic,
Each fresh green leaf,
Each lush new grass-blade,
Sprayed with silver diamonds of raindrops,
Sparkling,
Dazzling in the re-emerging sun.
.....................................................
A bamboo thicket,
Shades a village market,
A crowded, chatter-filled glade,
Where hundreds come to barter.
There is fish that smells,
Caught in crude wooden traps,
Or speared in rushing rivers,
And then paddled here by muscular, ebony arms,
Through dank and dripping creeks.
There is bread that is stale,
Mangoes that are over-ripe and sweet,
Pineapples that are magnificent.
Manioc in flowered tin bowls,
Of grated white pulp.
The flowered bowls are made in China.
There are bananas, paw-paws, cassava.
And sugar-ants, fat and juicy,
A delicacy to be eaten alive, still wriggling.
A host of gleaming black skins,
rub sun-dappled shoulders.
The women have frizzy hair,
And filed teeth.
And old grandmothers smoke crude wooden pipes,
Gripped in grinning red gums.
Everybody smiles.
................................................
A tree of weaver birds,
Thick branches bowed by their domed nests.
Yellow wings,
Like primrose petals rain.
Sweeping, fluttering, falling,
And then miraculously defying gravity,
To rise again.
.............................................
A waterfall,
A doomed river leaps boldy into eternity,
A vertical thunder,
Lost in a cauldron of white spray
And all along the black cliff,
Broken necklets of raindrops dance,
White silver tapestries of liquid lace,
Shimmer downwards,
Streams of moth wings,
Caught in the sun's bright ray.
.....................................................
The ice-peaks of the Ruwenzories,
The mystic, cloud-wreathed,
Mountains Of The Moon.
And then --
The golden bush,
Pastel and mellowed,
Raw and vibrant,
Beneath cream-frothed clouds,
Piled on purest blue.
Here eagles soar on careless wings,
Proud and God-like,
Scorning the thin-necked vultures,
That wheel beneath them,
And only dare to light on carrion.
Wart hogs, outraged colonels,
Snort and bristle with hairy faces.
Baboons scatter,
In an explosion of bright red bottoms.
While Buffalo,
Form a million black speaks,
Like ants on the distant, dust blue plain.
ELEPHANTS, HAVE RIGHT OF WAY,
Slow, White-tusked vegetarians,
No predator dare challenge.
Antelope graze,
Shy, elegant, graceful,
Fawn-fleet and Bambi-beautiful.
The Zebras,
Striped comic donkeys that bark,
Mingle with mournful blue wildebeste,
With their sad, shaggy faces.
A drowsy lion,
Licks a nonchalant paw,
Between kills.
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Along the cool river bank,
A red-necked heron,
Stalks his delicate,
Thoughtful way among the reeds.
Sunbirds flit like feathered jewels.
Kingfishers dip and dart in incandescent colour.
Tick birds, and rainbows of butterflies,
Cluster in the open-trap jaws,
Of black-scaled monsters,
Remnants from another age.
Ibis, sacred and glossy green,
Parade the mud flats,
Amid egrets, like tall White flakes,
Of winged snow.
A leopard,
Sleek, spotted death,
Beautiful, graceful death,
Slinks slowly down to drink.
...............................................
Out of a dust-filled sunset,
Harsh and splendid,
An inverted sea of fiery lava,
Chasing running rivers of red and gold and scarlet,
Darkness falls.
But never silence.
Never stillness.
Muffled drumbeats,
Drift on the warm night air,
A soft cloak of pregnant sound.
The fireflies twinkle,
Pin-prick eyes of bat-ghosts,
Weaving patterns of nothingness,
Competing faintly with the blaze of stars.
The insect orchestra,
Plays its eternal symphony without tune,
On squeaky chellos,
And rusted violins.
The mosquitoes emerge,
Whirring squadrons,
Of diminutive Kamikazi pilots,
Seeking the camp-fire circle,
To dive-bomb on bare flesh.
And with them come the Africans,
Sliding out of darkness and nowhere,
With maize cobs and scrawny chickens,
Clutched in dusky hands for barter.
Everybody Smiles.
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The white beaches are silvered.
The tall palm groves throw long,
Romantic, shadows
The Indian Ocean murmurs its lullaby.
While out on the savage plains,
The lion wakes,
To the hunting moon,
And roars ---
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