My body sits alone in this hurdy-gurdy, concrete,
European city,
While this crazy fast world rushes by me without a
smile nor pity,
In my soul I sit beneath my dear old friend, my
African baobab tree,
Drinking in the floral white fragrance of the pretty
chincherinchee.
The buzzing of traffic makes way for the gemsbok
running in herds,
No longer the noisy din of cars, only the songs of lyrical
African birds,
The plodding footsteps of the commuting dazed & dull
looking crowds,
Morph into grey elephants saluting the overhead
scudding white clouds.
The dirt & cold hardened pavement that hurts my
restless African feet,
Is really soft red dust where the rhino roam & the
old wildebeest bleat,
The fast-food frying, the hot-dog stands & the
unending petrol fumes,
Are now the aromas of the Kalahari, the aromatic &
herbal perfumes.
The beggars, buskers, the pimps & the whores, all
gone & are no more,
Leaving me with the eagle, meerkat, the leopard &
lion with gaping jaw,
The shouting & touting, the screeching brakes of
the smoky sooty cars,
Give way to the orchestra of silences & echoing African
drums from afar.
The ancient golden Bushman is the man I see standing
upon distant hill,
Not the sad brief-cased & be-suited gent I see
popping stressed out pill,
The city drained cockroach, the cur & the dirty
black vermin sewer rat,
Become the little dung beetle, the eland & the big
slinking stalking cat.
The icy cold, the wind, the creeping damp & the
drab rainy city grey,
Now turns & warms me, dressed in hot vibrant &
sunny African day,
Where my poor weary body is prisoner here, my mind is forever
free,
Where it sits beneath the ancient shade of my old African
baobab tree.
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