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    Out of the Eggs of Ants: An African Sketchbook and Other Poems
    Out of the Eggs of Ants: An African Sketchbook and Other Poems
    Out of the Eggs of Ants: An African Sketchbook and Other Poems
    Ebook122 pages59 minutes

    Out of the Eggs of Ants: An African Sketchbook and Other Poems

    By Edward Fisher

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    About this ebook

    TAWNY KINGS IN LIMBO

    In the twilight and the twittering dawn
    My life goes flitting like a spotted fawn.

    A scent of something stalks the tall, dry grass
    The fragrance of the rainI come; I pass.

    Acacia thorn and zigzag lightning rend
    And scratch their whistling way into the wind.

    Ant-castles silhouette the fire-swept plains
    Where tawny kings in limbo shake their manes.

    The clouds collapse; musk mixes with the breeze.
    Birds dart into the hard-knot of the trees.

    A vultures wing is passed across the sun.
    Blood stirs to surly muscle on the run.

    The lion scans the landscape as it lies,
    His dignity indifferent to the flies.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrafford Publishing
    Release dateJun 20, 2014
    ISBN9781490737973
    Out of the Eggs of Ants: An African Sketchbook and Other Poems
    Author

    Edward Fisher

    Edward Fisher taught school in Africa in the Peace Corps, and worked as a play-therapist and adventure-based counselor with special needs children. He holds a bachelors in literature and a doctorate in psychology. A Pushcart nominee, his prize-winning work has been published by several small college and university presses.

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      Book preview

      Out of the Eggs of Ants - Edward Fisher

      35637.png

      The Upside-Down Tree

      "In the lantern glow of its hollow, Goliath-size girth

      That serves as a tourist pub, the cheery landlord

      Draws another draft, laughing like Falstaff…"

      ~ Thomas Pakenham

      Inside every baobab is an elephant trying to get out.

      The Devil himself, in hyena disguise, turned it upside down;

      Its immense bulk, tapering off into stunted, upended roots.

      Like some prodigious Proteus, re-inventing himself,

      Assuming the shapes of octopus, hippo & wooden behemoth,

      It looms grotesquely over granite & salt-pan flats…

      Riding the epicenter of a monotonous continent

      When the isle of Madagascar split apart, set adrift

      Like some immortal tortoise, rattling gargantuan plates.

      Astonishing Brobdignagian monarch of the Kingdom of Ants,

      It undulates out of the vast savanna on gigantic python coils

      Twisting disfigured limbs like a witch’s fingernails…

      Its prediluvian grandeur, older than Methuselah;

      Its tangled crown of black mambas, like a hissing Medusa;

      Home to the weaver-bird, boomslang & baboon.

      Its glowing wax-white petals & carrion-scented stigma

      Drooping under the moon, court the velvet embrace

      Of the hawk-moth, woo the sleepy kiss of the fox-bat…

      This legendary calabash tree whose miraculous seeds,

      Strung together in a necklace, nurtured the ancestors

      Like Jonah in the nightmare belly of the Middle Passage.

      Through its cavernous cleft, you enter a house of horrors,

      A gloomy crypt, a make-shift jail, littered with skulls & bones

      Opening a subterranean pathway back to Africa…

      Cry Of Small Birds In The Desert

      A small bird in the desert

      Made its agony a song;

      Its music gracing the morning mist,

      Its loneliness, the dawn

      As silhouetted women

      Draw water at a well,

      Balancing calabash bowls on their heads,

      Quiet as shy gazelle.

      Poet, lover & dreamer

      I flatter myself with prayers,

      Where silence drifts through the moonlit dunes

      With shadows everywhere.

      Time is a green oasis

      Immortal for only a day,

      And the heart is a feathered, broken thing

      Without a wing or way.

      The Lights Of Timbuktu

      Across a sea of solitude and sand

      Into the vast Sahara stretching north,

      From this last place where shade & footprints fade

      Into mirage, a solemn band sets forth

      In silhouetted camel caravans

      To rendezvous & ply an ancient trade—

      Ferrying salt & ivory on their route

      From the fabled city of Timbuktu.

      Here, craftsmen from Granada to the east,

      Built stately temples, mosques & minarets;

      Assemblages of scholars, pilgrim priests

      And wealthy merchants sold rare manuscripts,

      Illuminated parchments, crumbling texts,

      Antique translations, tantras in Sanskrit—

      All come to dust beneath a crescent moon

      By the guttered candle-light of Timbuktu.

      The sultan sent his Andalusian moor

      To rout & put Mandingo kings in chains,

      End centuries of brutal tribal war

      Till desolation, ruled by tyrant ghosts,

      And anarchy paid tribute to their reign,

      Reducing to a lonely trading post

      That name that still evokes what men pursue

      But lies beyond their reach…"Ah! Timbuktu!"

      Among the windy wastes & tinkling chimes

      The contours of a continent take shape

      Where, grain by grain, in geologic time,

      Stars tumble through an hourglass, one by one,

      And life itself seems some absurd mistake…

      The sacred scarab rolls its ball of dung;

      Sand gathers at my doorstep—drifting dunes

      From the lost oasis of Timbuktu.

      Among Desert Thorns

      How shall we measure the scope of human history?

      By a far-off comet’s tail?

      What will endure after even God has forgotten us?

      Freedom? Ambition? Gold?

      On a purely astronomic scale, water is more precious…

      In the aftermath of holocaust, is poetry even possible?

      After the relentless cruelty

      Of iron marauders riding rough-shod with black-tipped spears

      Their slaves in tow,

      All the shops & streets, the universities & churches, sit empty…

      The future bends into distance & mystery & wordless meditation

      Where the soul sits in shadows,

      Each one on an equal footing with the lowliest snake!

      Take stock of your thoughts among desert thorns

      Under a roof of fixed stars…

      The dead melt away into the past

      And fill the night air with an unearthly stillness…

      Camel caravans set forth for the undiscovered source

      Across an abstract, imageless vista…

      Flocks fly off at the river’s end like lost constellations…

      The songs of Songhai dancers disappear in mirage

      Under the shade of palms in the oasis—

      All the antique grandeur of those bygone days

      Evaporate in the sun-split splendor,

      No longer heard in the waterless dawn…

      Papyrus

      Rush-reed of Egypt, redeemed from antiquity,

      Woven in water, polished with ivory—

      Mystery propitious, layered with prophesy,

      Bring me the garland of crocodile gods!

      Chronicle Ptolemy’s imperial rule,

      Mummies in bandages rolled up like scrolls,

      Fragments of Sappho’s lyrical tales

      Along with Book X of the Iliad.

      Manuscripts faded, in ancient Sanskrit,

      Excerpts from Genesis & Biblical texts;

      Edicts

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