keeping out the sun
                i travel this road
                Morogoro road
                many times
                this last time
                from Dar Es Salaam
                towards Kilimanjaro
                wondering which way is home

                Masika rains come
                winter clouds hang
                on mountains
                Masai and cattle
                cover hills like living-room curtains
                keeping me out

                a place with no cassava
                no pili-pili
                only nazi and ndizi
                old women sit in streets
                shrinking plantains over coal fires
                his mother's office is near here

                a street
                a dala-dala
                one hundred t-shillings
                and i am on my way

                Triding over Moshi
                the place where smoke rises
                letting my simple heart lead
                like Catholic Missionaries

                a simple thing really

                in the dark of Mandara's peak
                she will meet her son's choice
                moyo spread open
                wondering if salt is there
                somewhere beneath trees
                and red dirt evaporating a new wife
                wondering what water is left

Copyright © Taiyon Coleman, 2003.  All Rights Reserved.