There They Blow

there they blow

words as fountains

a chalk mountain

blown to pieces

night’s blackboard

stunned, speechless

like my language

in Uganda

in February 1972

there they go

click-cluck-cluck

tribal drumbeats

mountain to mountain

a language thread

as an undercurrent

in the liquid air

The King of Scotland’s joke

such cultural claims!

who are you, chameleon?

why are you a whale?

there they are

the wild ones

the guitar plucks dancing

on the water currents

the liquid strings

whose tunes are they playing?

they breached once

to say namaste 

to welcome me home

there they blow

now indifferent to an alien

Swimming with Whales is published by Skylark Publications (UK, 2017).