i.
my love for you is an Africa, horned
like a rhinoceros, and as massively myopic too,
for you are the yielding point of my eyes
and it’s in the grasslands of your beard
where I, all giggling, graze.
ii.
always, to be near you,
no further than tongue-distance
so I can wrap you in one glance
of my mouth,
because your body fits mine
like a Kalahari night against day
with just the deepening dawn of breath
in between –
no twilight can ever divide us.
iii.
in this land of the xam ka kau
you own all the waterholes:
you, rainmaker
and shaman,
and I, the dance
and the soft she-rain.
iv.
I love you from my very here
to my every Timbaktu;
for the way your voice rolls in
like a morning mist from the coast -
how easily you make my Namib body erupt
in sudden wildflowers,
everywhere.
v.
from Cairo to Cape Town,
I love you, in Swahili
and Afrikaans,
my lief,
and like the dancing figures
of Bushmen rock art,
this love will continue to celebrate our story,
because nowhere else are you engraved
with more care and with more love
than on the shimmering boulder
of my heart.
Bronze trophy winner
Gold trophy winner
Adding your comment:
I can feel the near breathlessness of deepening dawns and glowing Kalahari nights, and think if love is green in any other part of the world, it is not in Africa where life is born of starfire and skies low enough to touch. 
All I can say is this: it's obvious how truly inspiring you are to each other...from this distance? Ohhh, my...the world shall be aflame from the South soon...your love will light up the night sky so much, the moon will descend, thinking the sun wanted to work overtime. 
I don't blame him for reading it over & over....I will, too. Listed & bookmarked. Good luck in Lisa's contest, Sweetie. Methinks your New Year is already looking brighter & shinier. Sighhh...
