A Wilderness Place

Life passes as the seasons
Blunting the memories of the past
Only reminders scattered among the new
Quickly forgotten with the passing season

Inscriptions
Etched
In an ancient tongue,
Cracked mud
And bleached bones
Telling of dramas
Struggles
Survival
And waiting

Journal of the seasons: No birds called, and no insects, even the frogs were silent. The rain lingered until the waterlogged sky began to lighten. The sound of dripping vegetation still filled the senses until it passed into the background of the rising chorus .......

The paths will be overgrown, a fallen tree may be blocking the way of the past season, the ground will be carpeted in thick, lush greens and the trees will sway in full satiation ....

The Place Where the Buffalo Lay Down
In the place where the lions killed the buffalo yesterday is a carcass,
barely recognisable as a buffalo, only through the size, and the boss,
carried a distance away by hyenas during the night.

There are two hyenas there now,
sniffing, gnawing on the bones and tearing the sinews
and two buffalo passing slowly, grazing, unperturbed by the demise,
while vultures prance on the periphery,
moving in on an occasional stray.
They have waited since the agonizing bellows and the spilling of blood
on the brittle winter grass

By Leigh Kemp
South and East African Safaris
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