We walk in footsteps we have never owned
dance in gestures of the animal who awakens us
amorphous – within the stone we hold
We were born old
in the knowhow of the baobab
We saw the mangroves
as their shadows wore holes
in our body
Aunty ocean told us
this was soul
before it came to be
sewn-
it poured us in petrichor-
the smell of once was
whose nearness still
lingers here – there
restless familiar
as dust and chance
wake the absurd
∞
There was a colobus, long
lost but passed before us – outstretched
in the palm of the afterwards
we asked her about otherness
and she burst outwards in
arcs of laughter
is that enough for you, if not, where to?
∞
Marabous stalk somnambulant, beyond
the where-from of the oncoming
horizon, a chorus of slurred consonants
thrum-throng and call to us
swarmed within the wind, sweeping
up our tonsils, we hear a tickle
creep through – out inside
the opening O of vocal
spontaneous call-of-the-owl
pulses life into the gulf
of our tired vowels
∞
The elephant’s little cousin
shrieks a little louder
than you could believe
crescendoing and
slowing pure in-
tensity
spirit reaching full
for pitch
tearing to construct
and surpass its own
echo –
let go
little Pimbi, grow.
∞
The Octopus knows
the color of before,
head of water
like yours was air
He spoke of a chameleon, who
blinked in his inward blink,
a wisdom older than thinking
a riddle to leave us there
nowhere but aware:
pierce your skin as it wrinkles
in a rhythm of ghosts, those
animate willings – touch and listens
are vision,
see, you stubborn goat
you are
the hum the
sum humming sun-
bird,
the answer to the conundrum
the hum-anima/l
the world is a walkabout, if but
an oyster an odd choice
of your words
language is but land, sand and and
The trail of voice
tailing inseparable
from yours
To listen to the earth
is at once the comfort
of being –
heard
