Heartland
Bamboos creak and shiver
The air hot gooey molasses.
A pendulous ceiling of cloud
swings,
Fat with thunder.
Then inexorably, it rains.
Our river creeps sluggishly
round broad bends
Through sweat soaked jungle
That is the dwelling of ghosts,
Running into the dreaming
eyes of village elders
In silence, heat
Dredging the bones of history.
Finally its muddy vein works
at
A swathe of festering mangrove,
Before tussling the sea.
Flies, cockroaches,
Outrageous reeking flowers,
Mist drawn over our faces
Like ghosts in the grey daylight
Our craft a skimming pebble
On the roaring river,
Moving downstream. Leaving
For the child loud edges of
the ocean
For the tide crying wistfully
at inevitable loss,
For a shore clean scavenged
by
tentacles of sea.
© 2000
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