they’d likely stone the girl
with hatred burning cruel eyes.
Yes, this was Africa, the land
of all the creatures Noah saved,
of open space and sudden death
within the jungle and on open plains,
life did renew itself, eternally, a spring
of nectar, red as blood, and bright
reflecting crystals of hot sand
and gushing with the sound of streams
that never would survive the season.
He’d picked a gaunt and mostly dead
tree called the Jackalberry, home at times
to hungry vultures of indifferent persuasion,
they would be safe from lions and the like.
He hurried on, swinging his satchel
which contained the scones and dates
and one small bottle of Shiraz, a dry
and spicy Joostenberg, twothousandfour.
He spotted her, a flowery dress, a flag
of sweet surrender, perhaps it was.
There was a bloody-mouthed hyena,
eating the last few bits of flesh, and bones,
and only then he saw the birds of death,
all set to pounce, with hurried elegance.
It was the lions that had beaten racial hate.