Anxiety in Mosaic

LOVE POEM

37 May heaven succour you! Lying marooned in this wilderness of flinty times For when slavery begets immortality, O pobre madre! Who can plot with success, your demise? You who sweated centuries in the sun, Remaining poor Just to give others their bulging purses Of today * Spanish for poor mother * Poor mother, my poor mother LOVE POEM Sitting on a Saharan dune My love’s heart breaks of dearth In my wildest dream, wilder Than elephant grass I have borrowed the sweet voice Of many-a-songbird To sing her a love song of all that, in vanity’s hands – Does lie In my fervent wish, dreamier Than wishful thinking I have borrowed the humming voice Of many-a-distant waterfall To mend – with a ballad on illusion – My love’s broken heart of indigence Parch-mouthed, my darling awaits me Sitting on the Namib’s doorstep And in my profoundest longings, more profound 38 Than a hundred rift valleys, I have borrowed the mellifluous voice of many-a-river To sing her a ballad on illusion; A ballad of hope So lend me your silent voices, O many-a-palm grove! That under tonight’s blessed moon I may stand outside her window And gently gently serenade my love awake from her sleep; Her nightmarish slumber of privation TRUEST MOTHER You, from whose inexhaustible breasts Babies and foster-children From distant and enemy lands Have suckled generously to their fill, You are the truest mother of men You, who only smile, At the ingratitude of grown up nations Which you rocked to sleep on your ancient lap When they were babies, You are the truest mother of men Today, that umbilical cord From you to all your children; nations big and small Cannot be severed with such A blunt-edged epithet As Dark Continent And tomorrow, truest mother…! ...