Dreams In Africa Poem by Frank Bana

In the mouth of the wide savannah
The air of the hot midday
Casts on us a veil of stillness
Undisturbed by the remotest breeze

Time hovers almost motionless
As weaver birds build their family nests
Their busy conversations all at one
With the crickets and crackling leaves

The high sky is a backcloth
To the baobab tree outlined on the horizon
The acacias adorned with thorns
And the numberless red ants under our feet

The trails we examine have no direction
No men have passed here in this century
Any danger is fast of foot
And unconcerned with our reverie

Wordless with each other, our eyes scan the horizon
And gaze upon the vastness of the bush lands
Our hands, our fingers barely touch
As we stand unthinking, veiled by the stillness.

In the hour of siesta falling
The bush surrounds our common dreams.