Savannah Painting

Taxi headlights

Paint the baobab trees a ghostly white,

As we race through the darkness,

Showing me only the Africa I will miss,

And concealing the continent I can’t leave fast enough.

I will always remember

The way the winds blew across the rooftops,

The solitary goat ambling homewards

Under a sky filled with stars,

And the wonderful irony of the unhurried car-rapides.

It’s the kind of place

Where the kids yell ‘tubob’ from the rooftops,

Where the evening breeze

Pushes towards the river,

And the hanging laundry reaches

For the lights of Mauritania.

Below me, goats chase boys

Through sandy alleyways,

And women chat as they walk,

With bowls serenely balanced on their heads.

Here, the call to prayer sounds,

And people kneel to the north

Under a glinting moon.

In the evening,

We drum until the streetlights come on,

And bats wing overhead

Towards distant palm trees that fade into the dusk.

It’s long past dark,

When I brush my teeth

To the rhythm of the crickets’ chirps,

And drift to sleep under the hot African night.