AFRICA HOMELAND - A Poem

Commercial Farmers' Union ^ | September, 2002 | Anon.

[Clive]

AFRICA HOMELAND

Within my soul, within my mind, there lies a place I cannot find.
Home of my heart, land of my birth, smoke coloured stone, flame coloured earth.
Electric skies, shivering heat, blood red clay beneath my feet.

At night when finally alone, I close my eyes - I am at home.
I kneel and touch the blood warm sand and feel the pulse beneath my hand.
Of ancient life too old to name, in an ancient land too wild to tame.

How can I show you what I feel? How can I make this essence real?
I search for words in dumb frustration, to try and form some explanation.
But how can heart and soul be caught in one-dimensional written thought?

If love and longing are a "fire", and man "consumed" by his desire,
Then this love is no simple flame, that mortal thought can hold or tame.
As deep within the earth's own core, the love of home burns evermore...

"But what is home?" (I hear them say) "This never was yours anyway!
You never had a birthright to this place, descendant of another race!
An immigrant? A pioneer? You are no longer welcome here!"

Whoever said that love made sense - "I love" is an imperfect tense.
To love in vain has been man's fate - from history to the present date.
I have no grounds for dispensation, I have no home, I have no nation.

For just one moment in the night, I am complete, my soul takes flight.
For just one moment..... then it's gone .... and then I am once more undone.
Never complete. Never whole. White skin with an African soul??.

[Clive]

-

[backhoe]

That's a lovely poem, Clive... and it asks a haunting question.

[Travis McGee]

Time to go. Africa is FUBAR.