I push Radio Botswana <br />It spills a kindergarten song <br />From the villages, call and response, <br />Into the hotel room <br /> <br />A floor below, and down across the street <br />The band and beer, the discotheque <br /> <br />But I have a newer freedom to support <br />To touch the fire-spikes of redden flower <br />To breath the heavy perfume <br />Of the blossom-trees <br />To sleep away in the desert <br />Woken by the bark of baboons like angry men <br />To watch the heron and the kingfisher <br />Near the dam of Molepolole <br /> <br />Away from the carrion sound <br />Of bands and domestic dogs <br />Feasting on the meat of modernity: <br />Just a freedom of the carcass scraps <br />Wanted and denied for long. <br /> <br />The radio is guttural with the story <br />Of an ox left lonely in the kraal <br />And the bass sax from the floor below <br />Is out of tune with the one-string segaba <br />I wonder which music I like to hear <br />Writing to the calls and harmony <br />Of voices from the radio.<br /><br />Frank Bana<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/first-night-in-botswana/
