The Humble Eyes of Africa

Rain on the tin roof of an old mud hut
Singing in the nude with the windows shut
Despite the heat, for privacy's sake
The roaches and lizards are starting to wake
She reads them a story of old Russian Czars
Plays Joni Mitchell on her guitar
A flashlight lights the pebbled path
To the tiny shed where she takes her bath
Goblet, washcloth, shampoo, soap
Bucket of rainwater, low on hope
Nobody listens to her desperate plea
"Protection from Malaria and HIV!
Nutrition for children! For God's sake don't smoke!
I know you're all hungry and hopelessly broke,
but take one day for your child's vaccination!"
The rumbling feet on the dirt of creation
say "This is the way we have done things for years
And just who do you think you are to shed tears
For us?
As the dust
Collects in her hair
through the taxi window,
She can't help but stare at the goiter near bursting from a woman's throat,
She lectures on iodized salt but the goat
Bleating from the trunk drowns out her sermon
And damn it she's tired of sleep among vermon
And fuck it if nobody here understands
That she's holding elixir of life in her hands
And screw it she wants to be screwed til she's numb
And forget that she ever once witnessed the humble eyes of Africa.

But back in the air-conditioning
The world has lost its old positioning
And all she can hear are the songs that were played
And all she can think is that she should have stayed
And all she can see is the dust in the road
And all she can hope is that those seeds she sowed
Grew
and fed someone
If only she knew.

A computer screen and a cold diet coke
A cigarette she knows she shouldn't smoke
Whirring fan, vibrating cell
the voices she knows all too well
She never sings naked anymore
nor pores over volumes of forgotten lore
nor cries, nor feels nor reaches out
nor cares nor loves nor screams nor shouts
But waits for inspiration from
the urgent call of a beating drum.