We used to sit <br />Around the red teak table <br />With the Book Of Knowledge <br />Open with its picture <br />Of Africa. <br /> <br />That's where we were soon going. <br />To the country that stood out like the cat muscle <br />On Cassius Clay's shoulders <br /> <br />We would get there, <br />As soon as father's office papers <br />Came back from New Delhi. <br /> <br />For days, months, years, <br />Africa was our mulberry bush. <br /> <br />Africa. In all weather, the book would lie open <br />Upon the teakwood table. <br />We would sit and dream of the crown of Pyramids <br />Or of our feet dipped in Uranium. <br /> <br />The pygmies came out of the Denkali forest <br />At night <br />With their poison-tipped arrows <br />But there was always Phantom, <br />With his skull ring <br />And we woke up without sweat. <br /> <br />Every morning we returned before breakfast to Africa <br />Turning brown among silver fish in the sunlight from the window. <br /> <br />Decades later near a soccer field in America, <br />I saw Boko on film. I saw a black youth's red blood <br /> <br />On the dark long white patrolled streets of Africa. <br /> <br />Now I know, <br />Africa is no open book.<br /><br />Gopi Krishnan Kottoor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/africa-64/
