AFRICA'S DANCE

Sugar-coated murmurs soar through the dust of voices
rising and falling like an angry river.
Celestial breath brightly initiating the crops
as tender breezes coax the bending of trees
and whispered gossip of leaves.
Agonizing excitement hovers in zealous bursts.
Anxious awaiting
of one pregnant with joy
precipitates calfs and mothers running
like a naked frog in the desert heat.
Young bulls ostentaciously show face
as maiden auras of sweetly scented flowers
in young youthful vases
await eternal commitment into the passage of life.
Serious paternal forehards discuss everything and nothing
determenied to overshadow old and frail administration.

The oldest woman on the village
seateth eons of culture
thoughts of a future that is past
no longer bearing fruit.
     
        Hush!
        Hush!

The distant mournful cry of a lone percussion
instills an infectious throb.
She the chosen
the venerator of musical eons
painted
bright
beautiful
youthful
breaks into delicious stanzas
hypnotizing beads at waist
seducing beads at neck
as the kiss of beads at ankle
tintillize like the left hand of Shaka.
Unequal excitement fragments all perception
Evermore beautifully
the sugarcane waist rhythms
the banana limbs
side to side
left to right.

Wave upon wave the fever infects the epicentre
giggling the little ones imitate
beyond comparison endeavours on barren soil.
The echoes of desperate groping
of moons gone by in envious admiration
as vintaged reminiscence of decades in the wind
drift like the song from a crickets grave.

The oldest woman in the village
A soul infected with the thunderous rhythm
the blood sings passionately to a fullbodied ghost
the feet speaking to the hot ground
in fevered tongues
awakening the ancestors in delicate clouds of earth.
 
    Hush!
    Hush!

Drumbeats and song
drumbeats and song
echoes of the soul of mtu
rattling crumbling bones
to a heritage, a rhythm
Africa's dance