Long before you searched my secrets
I am she who began life with nothing
but a handful of dust in a basin
I was told to squat thereon
Upon stocky muscled legs
To hatch my young ones
Yearning to be born
I was advised to till the land
And grow fruit trees
For the feeding of the nations in my womb
Instead I spilled the dust
Of the birthing bowl
Upon loamy soils
Where meandering tributaries of great rivers end
The Nile, the Congo, the Issa Beer
After miles of winding and branching
And years of thinning and tapering
Among palm trees and olive groves
Where sweet date and pomegranate grow
With sugars rich and succulence
There pools of water were found
Where hippos swam and elephants drank
And hunters drew the lessons of the hunt
Carved out and dyed on old rock faces
I called aloud to my wayward children
Cried to my grandchildren to trample my back
Ease the knots between tendon and bone
With chubby brown fingers
They drew pictures on my back
Visions of a drifting world
On shifting sands stirred by the wind
Men on camels wrapped up and veiled
Carrying their homes upon their backs
Herding family, cattle and goats
From a country of sand to another of rock
The sand prevailed, the waters died
Salt remained within the rock
With one accord creation walked
Searching for the trail of the lost waters
In the valleys and gorges left behind
Calling for the waters between oases
To suffuse the air and return once more
To the sands as rain
So the serpent asked for a maid each year
To make golden rain for old Wagadu
Let sweep his waters through the sand
Deposit gold upon the land
The sacrifice was one we could not make
And Bida was slain upon the ground
So the sands creep on from day to day
Stirred up and whisked by a hot dry wind
I am she who remains among sand dunes
Mapping tributaries in the sand
