Okavango Delta

The still point in a spinning world

where, for a heartbeat silence fills

the void.

Wind in the canvas billows,

night falls away with the long slow call of lion:

behind my head hyenas squabble over leopard kill.

Later with the heat

cheetah stretch in swaying grass

light ‘n dark dappled miracles

invisible as the light shifts.

In front of me the long sloping canter

of giraffe, zebra dazzle with the wildebeest

at sundown hippos bob & disappear,

only their ears visible

against the silver of the pool.

Wind in the canvas billows,

while I could lie forever here rocked

in nature’s cradle.

Vultures pick the lion’s kill

once more the night is hollow

with chimera of movement,

baboons battle above my head

& the grass breathes  the Delta’s immortality

life & death an inch away

as water glistens and the elephant’s

grey shadows glide the horizon.