TWO POEMS ON EAST AFRICA
(Nightfall on the plains... on safari in East Africa. Photo by Richard G. Beyer)
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Nightfall On The Plains
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A tall Maasai in the brittle grass,
his long spear in his hand,
and wild-eyed women bright
with bead and copper band,
see strangers pass.
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Against encroaching night
the dwarf acacia chars;
plover and crane and francolin
steal out of sight -- and in
the sky above the Plains of Athi
come the stars.
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The stars creep out
and Earth revolves within
the planetary glow --
into unending night, across the plains
the three Maasai turn and go.
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Wilfred J. Plumbe
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From his book, AFRICAN POEMS & OTHERS, 1951
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Night Thoughts At Olduvai
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(For Sue and Tom)
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I
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Brief, frantic years ago
I was one of you, driven
competing for white space
scrawling our best words
across important pages.
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You are strangers to me now
aliens in some time warp
that I have fallen through
into this other dimension
into this genetic memory
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where the flutter of a single weed
stung by sand in harsh desert wind
and a few treasured shards of bone
excavated a deeper strata of worth
than all the truly important words
that time may have unearthed in me.
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II
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On still nights now, dreaming
of tropic moons, African stars
Kikuyu, Turkana, Luo and Boran
the long sweet safaris to come
in Serengeti, Naivasha, Samburu
danger on the edge of existence
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I hear whisps of each voice
the fragments of your lines
across dark planetary drift
but I feel no urge to reply.
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III
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Here, I am
lost in this calm throb of creation
seen in the starry sky over Olduvai
where the soft, delicate fragrances
elephant grass and acacias in bloom
can justify all things under heaven
and the echos are eternal and clear.
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Here, I
stoop in joy to scrawl my name
upon this wild, volcanic earth
filled with a vast tranquility
at peace with the expectation
that hundreds of Maasai cattle
will soon obliterate it forever.
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Richard G. Beyer
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Originally published in ELK RIVER REVIEW, Spring/Summer '94
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