A theodolite inscribes lines on an irregular landscape,
the dry savanna of my past – shapeless and void.
I strive to name it. I must impose order.
Reason.
The geography of a life comes clear
when the strength to endeavor is long extinct.
Africa. Still to be discovered, divined.
It beats in me, but the rhythm is fully foreign. It lies
low and tawny, obscured by harmattan or a downed power line;
maybe tomorrow, maybe soon.
Africa is not the lion but the chigger that burrows unseen,
unbidden into the sole;
the amoeba that lingers in the entrail
forgotten until moments least anticipated.
Years gone now, but still I shoot invisible lines,
new borders; I classify and project.
Africa has colonized me, bequeathed much that makes me
who I am. Yet it denies me my home.
Is my home.
