The Hell's Gate. Poem by Ravi Panamanna

Over the highlands
An eagle tears the sky
And scales the rocky mountains.
It glides along the Hell’s Gate
And courses through the Rift Valley
With an indifferent air –
As the solemn notes of the land,
As the rustle of the wind
And the dust over a desert.

There- it scans an isolated world
Where romance is void,
Where appears a ghost in every angle.
There the music is rocky,
The wind always grumbling
And the dust quite snarling.

There- among these rocky plains
Dwells animal life in variety.
Pythons survive the wild winds,
Ostrich is a familiar sight.
Birds reign the wild skies
And wild whistles echo over the land.

There- Nature is in a wild mood,
The valley hasn’t seen a man for long.
The sun climbs over the rocks
And sends an air of sigh for centuries.

Hell’s Gate is the echo of the Rift Valley,
Heard across the Savanna Plains.
It is the sound of rocky wild life
Emerging as a note of survival
That proclaims to the world –
‘One can be destroyed but never defeated’.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

28/07/1991