He stood in front of me, he said:
I want to be a gardener. I want to plant a seed and
watch it germinate, graft a stem and watch it grow.
Like you, I want to experience the unparalleled joy of
killing a thing and watch it bounce back to life.
Who wouldn’t want to be God? To say let there be
and rifles will sprout, shoot and bodies will fall? Who
will not make the stars a stool for their conquering feet?
I want to tell him you are too young, instead I say
you need a shovel and a patch of earth. I vanish
into the store and when I appear I hand a lad
an iron tool and tell him be careful,
watch with a smile as he circles to the back
and begins to wrestle with rocks and roots of trees.
(And God said: Heaven and earth shall pass… and
No whim of mine returns to me unfulfilled).
I turn back to the tv and to date palms and single-
humped camels, criss crossing a forgotten land.
Minutes later a boy comes rushing back, his eyes a
signification of words no ear wishes to hear.
I follow him to the back and he points:
there, under a hot sun of a hot, equatorial sky,
a calabash curves out of the ground,
ceramic bowl clutches toward the clouds,
skull and bones announces its existence,
white, like chalk, like kaolin, like God when He
stood unseen by prophet and rod.
Fifty years after a war and sorrow sticks out of the ground,
seven decades after a battle and indictment spills from a rock.
I seize the shovel, cover in a flash a country’s crimes,
lead a father and son back to the parlour and to
camels and horses, threshing seedless floors.
One thing is certain: there will be no seeds,
planted in this compound this year,
no seeds harvested in the coming years.
We will spend the time guessing whose unfortunate skull
until a boy comes down with fever and a father with pharyngitis
and all the while the skull will be laughing,
six feet below conquered soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash