FORTUNATE TRAVELLER
Category
an elderly matron
dressed in black
from head to toe
carrying string bags
of market produce
stumbles on uneven cobblestones
pitches heavily to the ground
attempts a mighty heave
falling back with a groan
Armies and ideologies rise and fall.
Your castle, churches, winding streets,
Your cobblestones have watched it all.
The murky days when feet sticky with duty
Dig deep into the saucer-shaped moon river,
Her already creased craters are rippled towards
An infolding…
Nostalgia (when we passed through Etche) Through the frigid terrain our car sliced Each palm, once a stranger now beckons and sways A wayfarer’s weary feet, trumpet the long-awaited return My gaze, fixed on the window, captures fleeting snapshots. Home, too, yearns for the nomad’s triumphant homecoming As streets whisper tales of an embrace long overdue Here, I declare it, this is home, and I am its herald What rivals…
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In The Middle of Third Mainland Bridge The danfo is a hub of abnormalities. This one is being towed by another. In this mobile mini-market, we jostle for space, throw jabs of tonguein search of quiet. The day has taken its tollbut I must endure this torture. A bug crawls on the shawl across a woman’s shoulder – a man by the windowsquashes another. There is an uproar!We fling the bus driver under vocal…
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Looking Back(for Oyorokoto) I turn to search your footsteps from acres of solitude away,to listen to the song of your tide singing home the fishers.but you are gone from me, the way ocean of becoming,its tributaries always beckoning flotsam of dreams,constantly wash young pebbles off your brine shore. I, whom survival weaned from your breast, am underfed.I sleep and wake in Obio-Akpor, in Ikwerre, still starved of language in my State,the…
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The Fishwife The fishwife in her wooden market stallTucks in a franc into her black brassiere,Smiles as she hands over the fish. She is tallHer teeth glisten whiter than the sassier Neighbour’s, whiter than any woman’s, so whiteI wondered if God knew she’d make itInto a magnet for custom and light.I did not ask her name, I wouldn’t pit My halting French against her effortless riverOf Bambara and market French….
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Pisa It was necessary to escape from the heat to the Ligurian seaso I got back on the train, the Tuscan countrysideunscrolling before me, in time for a quick lunch in Pisa,with the old joke of holding up the tower for a photo.I walked down a side street just off the Piazza del Duomoand ducked into a place where mostly locals were eating.At the end of a very simple but…
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For Benjamin I Walk Talk Walking We had an idea to take a walk, gowalking, not a stroll and not a hike, justa walk, going for a walk, knowing youcan stop, feeling the elements: the earth beneath your feet, the rain waiting, the airmoving, the fire waiting. The walkingworld doesn’t pass you by, it comes with you.You’re not driven and if you’re on the rightbearing, you can always rest. Any placecan…
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The Dark Green Conifers another day in the woods. on Strawberry ridgelooking out over undulating green hills tothe next great wall ridge of mountains. the lastmorning clouds left from last night’s stormhanging in the valley mistily. the sun eventuallyburns them away. the respect between old Paul Karlsen and I continuesto exist. even though he’s a Mormon and I’m a fallenNew Yorker. the work is comparatively easy, liftinghundred pound bags, so…
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