nowing when remembering then 

in the syncopating rumbling there
in the throats of dark men sweating
swallowing water from the mouth
of clear mason jars
in the lap of hot tobacco fields
and in the evening smelling good
of charcoal women frying fish
popping there in round black belly pots
on bright red embers burning slowly
there’s a low steady hummming
here telling of a hunger there deep
and praying in the rhythmic cradle
of a real fertile soil 

in the words sounding there
through cocoa hands rubbing clothes
‘cross the rusting ribs of old washing boards
and in Miss Glossy ‘crossing the street
there git’n along in her white uniform
proudly laughing in another day’s done
there’s the sweet belly tasting
of something round and a real dark brown
growing here in a rich delta ground
that’s making me real hungry
and wanting this something more 

in what then is it now-ing
the low drumming hummming
sitting there on the shores of Sahara coasts
shading us here in the chains
of bone dancing brothers profaning
this that it wrapping us warm
in the worm spawning bellies
of Jonah’s slave whales
and here carrying us on there
through savannas of preambling sands
perversenating in the palmings
of pomp and rapacious hands   

nowing here we’re there-ing then
in the canniballing drouthing
of colding and lonelying desert forms
invisibling wanderings in our wondering
now when in then am i be finding it now

Copyright © 1993, 2013 Asili Ya Nadhiri