Broken Morning (2008)

Out in the broken morning
My past lies scattered,
Ruptured by the light,
Unreflected like the moon.
There is too much to find
Sifting through the morning
Picking up its majesty,
Stuffing my pockets full of the day;
Weighed down by too much of the fresh daybreak
To try and run away.
Everything is clear at once
And everything is gone
Like the darkened night
That held me down
And together with chains
Linked from one moment to the next
Until all my yesterdays
Wrapped me up
In who I was meant to be.
I was caught there
I was bound
And then the broken morning,
And then the broken me.

Remembering (2008)

I remember
Or at least I can't forget
The cool evening breeze
Dampened by sputtering sprinklers
Left to water the grass
And the empty walkway too.
The leaves in the trees fluttered
Trying out the wind for the first time,
Catching the melodic currents
To play springtime secrets into the air;
Air fresh with lilac and rose,
And the damp sweet smell of the grass.

Our steps, both soft and slow
Remembered the ground for all its memories
And the memories it held still
Waiting for us to find
In the silence of our footfalls.

I could have stood there for hours
In the emptiness that grew
Like a darkening night around us
Leaving little chance of escape
From the tide that swept in
And found us alone, together
In the air thick with quiet
Answered by your embrace and soft lips.

Learning to Love (2008)

I watched the people dancing tonight;
Bodies moving this way and that,
Rhythmically to unseen melodies
Floating through the dense air
Full of sweat and cigarette smoke.

The scene was electric
Where one body brushed another
And all around the closeness of flesh
Felt like every longing filled;
Like the world burning and being reborn.

And through the night, touch adds to touch
Until the music slows
And two people, alone, dance
The slow dance of learning to love
While the others pause to watch
Wondering what they missed
In the movements of the night.

Dirty Feet

These lonely days have dirtied my plain feet
So much, the ashen toes forfeit their name
And rest beside my sandals on the street
Until my weary body does the same;
Unkept and wild in the light of day,
Committed to the trials and the pain
Made pure by all the memories that pay
For love and for this life in pouring rain.
And still the questions linger though the night
With that unremembered kiss upon the lips
Uttering nonsense to the wind, and quite
Unsure where to begin before she slips
Completely through the echoes of the past
To haunt the empty longings that still last.

Ssese (2007)

If we wake and the water is calm,
We’ll travel without a care
Past the equator’s outstretched arm

Where the kingfishers hover in the air
Like brightly-colored angels intent
On guarding Eden’s dying flare.

We’ll walk where time has spent
An eternity crushing unchanging rocks
With angry waves hell-bent

On washing over this tranquil spot.
Then the forest, a million voices strong,
Will call us to walk where God walks,

In cool shade; where the cookal’s song
From the depths of the giant mahogany
Makes us believe we belong,

Here, where we have an uncanny
Feeling that we have seen creation born
And filled with endless harmony.

Baobab Ballad (2007)

He was born beneath the Baobab tree
Where time begins and runs
The dusty streets of Africa
Searching for lost sons.

While others left to fight and die
For gems beneath the ground,
He wandered with his father’s cows
Far from the battle sound.

In scorching heat he traveled far,
Following the rain
From Congo’s mighty cataracts
To Serengeti’s plain.

He seemed to live a sacred life
At peace with everything
Until his cows were massacred
In battle’s mighty sting.

With all his fortune ripped apart
Rotting in the sun,
His hunger could no longer wait
For peaceful times to come.

At once he joined the desperate fight
With all the boys his age;
Too small to even grip the gun
Or even earn a wage.

I saw him there beneath the tree
Lying like at birth;
His body torn by greedy men,
His blood upon the earth.

He was born beneath the Baobab tree
Where time began to run
The dusty streets of Africa
Searching for her son.

Amarula Morning (2007)

I begin each day with Amarula in my coffee;
Mostly I want the aroma to fill the morning
And my room with the scent of the savanna at sunrise;
That moment when the hyena has ceased to laugh at the moon
And the hippos slink off to hide their pink bellies in the mud.

At times this seems too sacred for the cold days of January
When the naked trees and frozen sun lie dead
And cannot understand how pure an African morning looks
Before the wildebeests have kicked dust into the air
In their endless journey to return where they never stay.

The Amarula reminds me that I never stay,
And that I don’t belong – except maybe in Heathrow Airport;
Where nobody stays and everyone belongs.
It is the only place with enough departure gates
To handle my nomadic indirection in life.

My morning coffee reminds me of where I grew up
And the reddish stains that never seem to wash off.
The African soil claimed me when I learned to crawl
And began to clothe myself in a rich garment of mud
To hide the fact that I didn’t quite belong in Africa.

And so, on cold January days, I also need my coffee to wake up
To the fact that I am here - here, where it looks like I belong
Only because I leave the savanna’s scent in my room
Where my stained shoes lie safely hidden in the dark corner of my closet
Along with all the questions they raise about my wandering.

Here, where it looks like I belong, it is the muddy stains I hide
Because they do not match the red brick and white columns
Common to this world of bowties and sundresses;
Africa is too real for this world to handle
So I try not to cause a stir in my t-shirt and blue jeans.

My Pen

I lost my pen.
It was crammed
beneath Dostoevsky, Twain,
the Bible,
and all those notes I kept on Plato.
I don’t know
how it got there.
I try to keep a free hand
when reading -
Maybe I got caught up
turning pages
and lost my train of thought

That would explain the strange dreams
And random quotations
I hardly understand
That keep filling my mind
At inopportune times
Like when I’m eating dinner
With the girl I love

I’m not sure how
The books didn’t topple over
At the imbalance of my pen
Or how all those ages
Of wisdom and folly
Didn’t squeeze the ink out
Onto my table
With the crumbs of cake,
I am that clumsy.

My thought has kind of come back
But I’m not sure
Where it left me,
On the verge
Of throwing the world on end,
Or reaching for my pen.
It still writes
Though I wonder
If it isn’t a lighter shade of black

When We Stop

The chapel bells ring
And the red bricks echo
The time of day,
The hour of night,
When the leaves fall
And pile up.

You have coffee;
You always do
When you walk through those leaves,
Yellow and golden,
Crunching under foot,
Rustling away
As you hurry along.

But if you stop,
They just fall,
Swirling in patterns
Chosen by the wind,
Whispering sweet songs
In the branches
That unveil their true colors.

If you stop
The leaves rot
And smell alive,
Like the roses of Reynolda;
They lose their pedals too,
In even more brilliant colors
Beneath the maple trees.

And we lose our colors,
The world we painted
Attempting to make sense of it all;
The bells ring
And change comes ringing too,
The falling colors
Beautiful, when we stop.

Toward Morning

Perhaps it is has been this way;
I am the one darting off
Headlights riveted on my frightened frame
Skin and bones trapped in the dust.

The moon does little to solve the dark
Meek imitation that it is
Secrets don’t even hide
In shadows cast by the moon.

The world is eerie and pale
Glowing yellow and blandish gray,
Dry grasses and thorn trees
Blown by desert winds.

Heaven shifts in the hazy sky
Hours pass by in miles,
A path that never ends
Sweeping the night away.

Answers never do come;
Daylight’s purple tinge spreads
Careening toward morning
With eyes less filled with fear.

Wandering the miles
Between now and the sun
In the cool aqua light
I might just make it home.