AFRICAN CHILDHOOD:

No bright lights, running water & no shops, nor radio & TV,

Only swimming in deep rivers beneath old peppercorn trees,

No computers, no mobiles, no chatting on illuminated screens,

Only the grunting, roaring & the primeval & primitive screams.

Barefoot & free, sun on cheeks & wind in my long tussled hair,

Only dust & mimosa caressing my little brown legs running bare,

Chincherinchee, chongololos, big snakes & hippos yawning wide,

Life lived free; life lived in the vast open wild, in a world of outside.

My only friends, those of beasts, of birds & those little golden folk,

Dancing daily beneath the silence, in a world where no voice spoke,

The click, clack & crack of seeds & pods, being led to the sandy dance,

By the big red sun rising beyond blue hills, as the horned eland prance.

The aromas of smoky fires & muddy mists of the green & slimy river,

Making my young skin tremble, with early morning dew & chilly shiver,

Those unforgotten, hot molten days of long endless & everlasting time,

Lasting back then in childhood for eternity & were mine alone, all mine.

There were no toys to play with then, only the hot & golden African sand,

Drawn upon the old blowing, swirling dust by the ancient continent´s hand,

The humming, drumming, strumming voices of prowling beast & flighty bird,

Waltzing to the wild & wonderful orchestras of the prancing passing herds.

Not within classroom of walls, my school of life was in the baobab tree,

Teaching me the old secrets of the earth, how to behave & how to be me,

To know the meaning of the laughter of the herbs & the smile of blooms,

Lulling me to heavens unimagined, beneath the ancient San sketched moons.

Clasping clawed talons, shelled scales, fangs, beaks & wide gaping maws,

Mosaic jeweled feathers, patterned skins, pretty pelts & soft padding paws,

Echoing on Kalahari winds, the distant whispering of old ancestor´s bones,

Beneath sacred roots, hide those deep streams guarded by old grey stones.

Looking back to my childhood now, from my old, first-world advancing age,

Back to that ancient earth of my teacher, my mentor & my wise old sage,

Through my rheumy webbed eyes & lost mind, I see that distant little child,

Dancing in the open hands of her Africa, dancing free, warm & ever so wild.