artwork: ralph murre
TORCHLIGHT
TEARS
by
Fiona Lovatt Davis
In
the folds beneath his eyes,
glistening
in the torch light,
there
were tears (like silver).
He
had coloured a horse black
and galloping across Niger
where
his mother and father live
and
all his family and his camels.
He
rode that steed at full pace
feeling,
again, her gait beneath him
and
he laughed at the idea of oranges
balanced
on his head at such a speed.
This
boy, they told me he was deaf,
found
words for hooves and mane and tail
and
the pound and beat of driving power
and
gave us laughter in that darkened hour,
when
his own eyes were moist in memory
of
the distant ones he loves so much
and
can recall but cannot touch.
~
first published in the Nigerian Sentinel
