Globe In Darkness Poem by Frank Bana

Almost round, outlined in blue
Too lonely to be understood
Intimate to her tenants' touch
The globe in space is effortless.

A bulb of light for the dim expanse
Rotating, hovering in grace
Her dance a step unknown to those
Who claw and scar her surfaces.

Scientists of restrictive laws
Know that life and sustenance
Flow only from her hidden core
To which all worshippers are called.

I touch her grass and trees with care
From her I learn that all I am
Will grow and eat and age and die
On earth and waters she provides.

The globe rotates her deserts of time
Where human life and love began
The oceans churn and come to rest
Where they meet the open sky.

Seabirds cry their panic notes
Coastal creatures seek the hills
While in a quiet island bower
A bee stabs at the buttercups.

By Pooh stickers and alphabets
A child spins her globe around:
'Daddy, I want to see Africa.
Can you take me there again? '

Enclosed in remnants of the woods
Spirit guardians recall
Her most intricate fish and beasts
The stories loved by childish hearts.

Her king of beasts known to be wise
But when wisdom is not his prize
Her soil that yields his daily bread
Is stained with red, his daily blood.

Saplings nursed in netting shade
Are planted stem by stem with care
In a yearly rite, on Sahelian hills
After the falling of the rain.

Semi-lit against the dark
With purpose through its daily work
A tiny brush restores the glow
To fading faces of the globe.