Fri
Dec
18
it was the iron black clouds
We hiked along elephant paths in mopane forests screaming with locusts. You tuned your guitar and sang to me from John Hurt’s Spike Driver Blues, “Baby, please fall asleep quickly…” I sang to you from the Laotian, “Once you fall asleep, Mama can go to work. I need to set the fire, cook and feed the pigs…” We talked about the mass extinction of languages. On top of everything else; half the world’s tongues.
We took shelter in a grove of wild laurel bruised by earlier sounds. You looked so beautiful in your natural made bed of blue and red.
It was when the rain rattled the leaves
covering your head,
that you leaned in my direction
saying it was the iron black clouds
that told you to.
