i hear africa

This is another poem about Africa that will be in my poetry book, Breathing African Air. 

i hear africa 

the hoopoe calls hoop-hoop

hoop-hoop-hoop on forest

tree trunk, where high-pitched grey

hornbill ignores the kwe

of a grey go-away;

cicada swarms where sun

light warms and plays tymbals;

zizzing a song, crickets

chirping cheerily all

summer long; the turtle

dove mourns the heat and coos

its love song to the breeze;

green garden gnat and red

dotted ladybird, mute

marvels of the insect

world, wing their way from tree

to tree; in dappled shade

of green and yellow grass

hides mounds of red ground where

thousands of termites work;

the anteater’s long snout

goes about to forage

for the delicacy

of the veld; the whinny

and braying bark of a

zebra standing near, while

blue wildebeest ga-noo

in the arid karoo

and graze in the heat haze;

for days the lazy cat,

camouflaged, yawns and waits

for feline fury to

fetch the food and thunders

out a roar to warn the

cackling hyenas, and

hears their manic panic:

ooooh-whoop ooooh-whoop ooooh-whoop,

waiting in pack nearby;

the sun soon sets in shades

on africa and an

elephant bull trumpets

his call to a herd who

hears the rumble and chirps

to the rhythm of the

beat; the hippo, submerged,

surfaces and grunts on

land to roam on sand where

a crocodile once tanned

in the sun; the flutter

of feathers dust the ground

and the owl’s hoo-hooopooo

breaks the silence of dark;

a distant lone jackal

howls to the moon, and my

africa says goodnight