Roar of Lions

You fly away on spirit wings
held aloft in cottony clouds
by wishes of love and
thoughts filled of caring.

Warm winds rise up from land below
to lightly pull your gossamer craft
as if on a sea of grace and giving
and the Sun gently kisses your cheek.

And I stand with dry eyes
and gauge the season of your leaving
my smile says a warm farewell
but then I must softly ask , do not look again

I wish for your days to be well
and pass as may truly please you
I know your journey is of the greater love
we do God’s work in our own ways

I

My heart soared upon reading your words,
I can only assure you, from the bottom
of this soul, I feel the same...

sometimes, in calm of evening
and work is done, camp becomes
claustrophobic, even though we
sleep neath starlit skies,
I sit, in quiet contemplation
of you, your hand in mine, music
of laughter.
soon trek will be over and again
I will feel the thrill of your
embrace.

I have a fever, but do not worry,
they tell me it is Africa's gift
to foreigner's and cool water
soothes its burn.

Cecil Rhodes once wrote that,
Africa needed men of vision
and of courage,
to stir it from its sleep.

after seeing this vast land
I understand his words with
more clarity now,

it is exceedingly beautiful here,
cool days, and evenings quite cold
with icy streams and no mosquitoes.

Unlike the swamp where wind blows
the army advancing on our tents.
In the forest elephants come
to taste the sugary fruit of
mahobahoba trees,
intoxicated by their
fermentation.

My life seems to stall in this
place, as if all time has
stood still and it pains me
not to witness it all
without the one I cherish
by my side.

This is the liquer that is
Africa, not the sad and silent
death than marches on its
people, destroying and
marching further into
the interior where so many
are not reached.

I have stood on the shores of
Tanganyika, fallen into her
wet sands, heard the hiss of
wavelets kissing each individual
grain, before disappearing
into her inexhaustible depths.

My mouth watered at the sight
of it. I waded through the
breakers, rejoicing at the
buffeting they gave,
and the flicker of a hippo's
ear appeared in the lull,
between rising waves.

And further out, no land or mountain
intruded between where I stood and
the distant, watery horizon;
and at that moment I needed you.

II

I read your letter and it brought a tear.
I felt as though I were seeing Africa
through your eyes,
and feeling it through your skin.

The winds, the waves, the sands;
all seemed as if they were touching me;
your words have transported me
across the hours and miles.

I felt the longing in your letter too.
One must be humbled by the thought
that in the midst of such beauty
you wanted a hand to hold,
and an ear to hear your thoughts.

Africa inspires the best and worst in us;
your letter reminds of how much she needs;
how much she needs our very best.

I feel that God has brought you there for a reason
and you seem to love the place where you stand so tall.

In my eyes you have always stood tall and with strength;
now you stand as ever, in Africa.

I miss you and so many things that you bring to my life;
so many moments of joy.
But I am happy that you have chosen to be in Africa now.

I will wait eagerly until your next letter
and I will dream the thoughts you have given to me.

Please know that my love and wishes
are with you always;
And that there are many more wondrous things
in store for you.


My hopes go with you
that you will have all of the joy that you can hold.

III

It takes so long to receive your words,
I long to hear them,
we moved to highland grasses today,
and a hundred yards away was a grass
thatched hut, empty.

It was not the first we'd passed,
I swore I heard a baby's whimper
and I cupped my ear against the wind.

It came again, faint and lost in the
rolling ocean of grass.
I had to take a look, I felt the
pull.

The village was like a corpse,
external signs of living,
a threshing rack, low platform
women would use to sit and sew.
Coconut halves, shells I imagined
children played with;
a row of pots.

It was what was missing that told
of the violent disruption.
There were no chorus of voices,
men, women, old and young
no aroma of cooking and
nothing to be seen of children
or their happy voices.

The goat pen was vacated,
crops, partly harvested stood
on a neighboring hill.

The weak cry took again my
attention.
I moved to the circle of huts,
the one I thought held the sound
was closed tight.
I readied myself for what I would
find.
Flung it open...

a young goat bleated as it ran
past.
It stopped took a drink from
a broken pot and trotted off.

I wiped my forehead and shoulders
relaxed, I almost laughed but not
in joy, more in slighted fear.
I took a breath and smelt the
volcano's sulphurous vapour
reach me on the wind.

Ahead I spied above the mountain's
flank, sky vivid, blue;
broken by long white tails of
cirrus clouds and a squadron
of black shapes.
I didn't need binoculars, I knew
they were vultures.

We walked for hours to reach
the flock and I think if you
had been there I would have truly
fainted in your arms.

A huge black bird was trying
to take off with something in
its talons.
It struggled with the weight
and released the load as we
approached.
Our guide squeezed off a round
and they abandoned the task.
Their departure revealed body
parts, like meat scraps thrown from
a butchers hook.

A deafening howl reached my ears
and from the hill beyond the village
rebel soldiers appeared,
I was frightened by the overly
aggressive nature and wondered
at that point, if I would ever
see your face again.

IV

We both know of Africa and her people
the wonderful color and culture.
The fitting in with the natural scheme;
the crafts, tool making, food gathering;
the wonderful traditions of song and drums
always the children and love of family
the lore and hunting... and the drums.

Have the drums stopped beating there
is the village a snapshot of the loss of Africa

How welcome would be
the howl of a child looking for its mother
to come and feed it.
How welcome the hustle and bustle of village life;
has it gone too far, have we lost Africa?

I say prayers for you every day.
Not because I think you are weak;
on the contrary
I think Africa is weak and small people can have their way.
and so I say prayers every day that wisdom will guide
your way.
So many outside of Africa do not know
so many within Africa accept.

Change will be difficult I know.
I know I am avoiding here, dear one
I pray for your safe passage
with all of the Faith that I have.

I send my Angels to watch you while you sleep
and to stand beside you always.

Be safe, dear one

V

Your letter took several weeks to be delivered,
I know you would worry from my last
had we been safe or detained.
The answer is yes to both,
but only briefly, our papers
were in order and the nature
of charitable organizations seemed
to make them at least a little
more hospitable.

We returned through the village
to view what we had avoided.
The rebels had told us it
was an unavoidable situation.
I cannot see how that is
possible, for I saw no weapons
not like the heavy guns the
soldiers carried.

I had never witnessed such
savagery;
coils of human entrails hung
dry on racks,
a body, skinned to the bone
surrounded by vultures.

I am afraid I had a morbid
fascination to continue looking.
a head, burnt a charcoal shell,
scalped peeled as if an orange rind.
I felt the bile rise in my
throat, and I hastened to leave
at a brisk pace,
but I fear the image will haunt
me.
The native guide told us, it is
as it should be, the ancient
way that the animals clean
the carcasses rather than
white man's law of burying it.

Alas my love, this is Uganda
with all its tragedies,
and yet as I now stand and stare
at our trail to the Ruwenzori
Mountains, where in the
second century Ptolemy
named them Mountain of the
Moons,
for I don't know how he would
know that or even saw them at all.
He claimed it was the source of the
Nile,
by all accounts it seems he
may have been correct.

The fever has come and gone
again,
due to the fact we share tents
with the noisy army once more,
my sleep is interrupted by their
droning, that and the cause
to eject one or more large
rodents from my bed.

Next time I write I may
indeed be viewing a white
person for the first time
in a long while, I cannot say
it will be a bad thing to
speak English correctly again...

until then...

VI

Well, my prayers have been answered;
and I can fully exhale. It is good to know
that there is some regard for the work
the aid is needed so badly.

There are things that happen in Africa
that do not seem to occur anywhere else.

Life seems more at risk there
more tenuous there, than anyplace else.

At times it appears to be a bad scary movie
where disjointed acts of horrible violence
seem to pop upon the screen;
only this is all so terribly real.

You are not there for idle reasons,
Africa needs help or she may be lost
to bitter tears and sad remembrances.

What you saw will haunt you dear one.
You have walked in an awful place of
destruction,
on fields that know no mercy or compassion.

You must look at all you can bear to see,
you must keep it, for those lives are gone
but good may yet come if others can know.

This is a call and demand
upon your courage and resilience
but you are there for a reason.

And in the midst of all
you spy the grandeur of majestic mountains
and hear the voices from ages, Pharaohs,
masters of the lower Nile.
There were ancient kingdoms of gold and trade there.
All lost to the blind eye of western history,
but you are there dear one, and you have seen.

The fever has passed that is good,
your difficult nights
are a nuisance I know.
I hope you do see some western faces soon,
but you have learned the humility
of being in another’s land,
this too you will carry in you.

Until next dear one,
you remain in my tender thoughts
and most urgent prayers.

VII

I am so excited today, for it
was my first view of the Great Rift
Valley,
I took a walk to a wooded hill on
the outskirts of our camp,
sat with the night sounds and the
stars,
and I wonder, do you sit under
them also?
Look to the sky and think of me,
it feels like a forever since
I received any word.

The only horrifying thing in the past
weeks has been a nasty infestation
of fleas, amid the myriad of other
crawling things, I can actually
laugh for it attacks the natives
as much as it does ourselves,
we have had much merriment watching
each other scratch.

But I think it not unreasonable
to ask for a comfortable bed without
being invaded by blood sucking
mosquitoes
or a morning search of boots
for scorpions or spiders,
now I know I hear you laugh
because I am so afraid of them.

You would be proud of me, I
can actually face and kill them,
they are so large, they do not
look real, more like mechanical
robots with eight legs!

I was a few pounds over my
ideal weight when I started
but I have now rectified that
problem without effort,
I now require a belt much
smaller and have become quite
petite.

I have satisfied my craving
in the view of a lion, rhino
and giraffe, now I long
for that soft down mattress
and a quilt with you and I within
it, holding one another again.

I have also seen the poachers
destruction of four rhino
and some elephants, tusks gone
and left to rot under the merciless
sun.

I did not quite tell the entire
truth last letter, the fever
is a little worse,
it has raged through me
as a grass fire on the savannah,
I lose all sense of time and place.
then there is lucidity, but
little energy,
it is these times I sit and look
to the Nile as it stretches northward
and when we reach Gondorokoro
it will be the last chance
to receive your mail.

We will board a dhow for the trip
into Cairo and then a plane
into your arms and I await those
kisses to tell me I did it all
and I was right to go and the
children will be better for
me being there.

Keep the fire burning my love,
it will not be long to go...

VIII

You need not hide things from me,
I have enough worry for the both of us.
I hope the fever has subsided this time,
for good.
Again, I see Africa through your eyes dear one,
the Great Rift and the great animals.
That they are still there at all is a tribute
to the tenacity of nature.
Poaching is horrible to comfortable westerners.
No one stopped our slaughter of kangaroos, buffalo,
or the decimation of African animals either.
I have decided not to judge a man
who might be trying to feed a starving family.
The life of the animal is not equated to human comfort
anywhere else. But it is horrible and a waste.

Yes you and insects that is a funny picture.
Necessity teaches I think, and you no longer have
the luxury of shrieking at the occasional bug.

You seem to have learned well to guard your
shoes and clothing against the intruders.

Fleas, well I wish good luck with that.

I imagine this is a bittersweet time
for you as you savor your dwindling days.

I was taken by your view of the night sky, yes,
I do sit and wonder if we share a view of these magnificent nights.
I am comforted to think we still touch this way;
love across a galaxy….
I will keep the lamp burning for you
and eagerly count the days.
Be safe and be well, till then