The Middle of Nowhere

I am pottering about this African spot
with nothing particular to mark it:
although GPS could pinpoint and Sat Nav find
all I see is dollops of blue ablaze with the chariot of Ra careering overhead
where great ships of the air lumber, lining up gingerly with windsocks, tarmac.
Seatbelt signs are on and bleary faces dead-pan leer
upon the tilted patchwork lurching below.
The golden cockerel struts and crows
not one whit decimated in importance.
The slabs of river gilded draw wide curves of glass
-plated like burnished steel
each mile a minute, its loops and bends
etched in silver filigree and the lush delta fringe.
Those voyeurs on high, for all the magnifications of their altitude
cannot detect one pump, one goat, one tree
let alone the upside-down cockerel or invisible me.
Our relevance is never proportionate to perspective either!
I have no-where I would prefer to be
or is more significant than sat in this tattered old shack
with the fine silk silt between my toes

and Mrs Hen clucking from her throne of an old tin can.

The desert wind runs like a long tide
scything the northern edges of everything in its path;
it is full-bloodied and relentless
providing the flocks of birds a steep jet take-off shute
and the trees to shuffle and seethe incessantly, every leaf a’glint, bedizened.

Cylinder whirlygigs of dust skew along the furrows
until they bump into a bank or wall.
The solitary donkey hoots to the moon, lofting whitely out of the latitudes
And the tangy fragrance of coffee freshly roasting,
alerts every neuron to rapture.
Giant butterflies like swirling tufts of bright hankies lollop and trollop about
without any consideration for economy of direction or aerodynamic nicety.
By which time, the poor dears, clutching their bulging baggages and nerves
are wrestling with lopsided trolleys and taxis
the cacophony of relatives and welcoming committees
profuse with perfume and sweat.
All I hear is the chatty murmur of the pigeons
and pip-squeak of the fluff-ball chicks.

A spunky baby rabbit
butts his way underneath any hopeful adult belly
rolling onto his back, little legs flaying, to get his tea
– only to find, each time, the reprehensible creature
hops off leaving him indelicately scrabbling, upturned.
His tiny rabbit psyche has Oedipus on the way.

The bits of tarp and weathered cane, sun-pocked and filtered
flap and rustle like the brim of an ancient hat
shading the wobble-bricked yard: birds nest therein
along with the tele arial and rolls of spare piping.
(The folk here take to the screen and phone
as natural antennae and extensions of their innate communal sense).

The conversation is around the fruiting time of limes
breeding cycles for the bunnies and tales of a monster bird as big
as that barrel of diesel in the corner;
the Jebana ritual, with its teeny cups, earthen pot and wafting incense
Is the holiest communion of everyday
as remote as an alien galaxy from the plastic stuff slurping in synthetics
entombed in the contemporary concept of fitting things IN
-in unholy receptacles and containers
in the galleys zoning in above like feasting sharks:
squished seating, despotic timetables, fiddlesome machines
while we loll like kings
propped on sacks of fodder, rickety old stools and a saggy rope bed
with all the space in the world for elbows and souls
shared with the lamb and the hen
and the widest air to dream of.

Nowhere to know of
not a name or address
dirt tracks weave through the thorn scrub
carcase of truck or cow the only signpost;

 a canal is being dug by the Chinese
beyond the plastic-bag zone
(which denotes city peripheries)
where every tree, stump, post is hideously festooned
with the detritus of our technological cleverness.
The man in the machine above, if he zoomed in on these scummy orchards
might have deduced it was some sort of indigenous fruit.
A fruit that feeds not.

While the child sorts the sunflower seeds
and plants them along the irrigation ditch
and her daddy does not need to guard or limit her, for “safeties sake”.

In the shed they gather seeds for next season
(Montesanto and their ilk notwithstanding)

knowing a third is for the birds.