JUST A QUESTION
Where is the palm that holds us safe?
We are the animals that roam within your grip. We wait for the rains each year with a trust you do not always honor. We know our pleasures from your bounty only when they arrive. Otherwise, the mud and rocks sustain us in fragile gift.
Touch us gently when your fingers feel need. The passing breeze is your caress.
Let us be eternally whole even as we need to sacrifice one of our own to a hunger of another kind.
We sing your canticles each evening. But do you know our song?
=====
GARDEN AT NAIROBI HOTEL
The flowers, vines and masterly
trees embrace each other in a tight romance of greens, pinks, reds, and nuances of their tenacity.
They design images of broken faces from their strong roots that mask their beauty. The color of them does not flame, but perches on the ledge of contemplation.
Here I stand as witness! Scraping my words at the doorway of Africa where my imagination only manages a cautious step.
=====
LAKE ELEMENTAITA
The monotony of sight in slashed
by flamingoes, vivid pink.
Our eyes are open to the contrast of stagnant Time to living birds.
They won’t see it my way!
Only see it as their own.
The way the postcard captures it.
The way I might relate the staleness of image at parties, drunk on lying memory.
=====
Poems (c) Christine Emmert
Image: ChtGPT remixed