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 are 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
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 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 baggage’s 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 aerial 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 every-day
as remote as an alien galaxy
from the plastic stuff slurping in synthetics
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.