Ode to Africa

dedicated to my dear friend Marho Akwenuke, from Warri Province, Nigeria

It's the cradle of humanity,
a vast continent
home to gazelles,
elephants, leopards,
and diverse tribes and races

It's a sea of humanity
unpolluted by phony democracy
and stale technocracy:

the land of the cheetah,
the tribal warrior, the proud Boer,
savanna and jungle,
pygmies, goats, and cell-phones

It's a vast continent:
fertile with opportunity,
home to the village and the cosmopolis,
the gentle Christian,
the brilliant intellectual,
the ruthless criminal,
the honest businessman:
reptillian deserts,
teeming oceans, remote islands,
and the great, ferocious sun

Even now,
civilizations are forming:
a ferment of modernistic change,
intellectual foment,
conflict, innovation,
enlightenment, prejudice,
charity, brutality,
poverty, strength, wealth,
health, disease,
and all other things earthly and human

It's a continent of darkness and light,
and of bright potential
a place where sublime transformations
are happening invisibly
(at least to the eyes
of the courteously racist Western media)

So, strong and bold young man:
go not east nor west
but to the golden heart of Africa,
where great challenges and opportunities await