Ngorogoro Crater

*Picture by Tobin Rogers on Unsplash

*Picture by Tobin Rogers on Unsplash

 

My safari's jeep draws zig zag tracks,

Imprints left for puddles of rain, 

Through the Ngorogoro Crater—

 

Resting like a basin,

In red wet clay,

Beneath low hanging sub-Saharan African trees.
 

Legend has it three million years ago,

A volcano collapsed in on itself,

Indenting the land,

Leaving it exposed—

 

As if you could cradle the remnants,

In the palm of your hand. 
 

Today, lions languish in the afternoon heat,

Lazy with hidden ferocity,

Giraffes stand together, a gangly tower,

Peacefully still;

 

Babies are born six feet tall,

While the mother labors from even greater heights,

Twisting her neck, the newborn falls,

Breaking the umbilical cord with momentum—
 

Perhaps they begin in an act of surrender,

A dive into grace. 

 

My Masaai friend whistles through the gap in his teeth,

Brushing his arm against red checkered wool,

Pointing so I don't miss it—
 

One broke away!

Into an elegant trot,

Its disproportionate body,

Rippling like water,

Through knotty joints—

 

Wild, free, unrestrained,

Delicate and other-worldly.
 

I watch attentively, 

As something in me releases—

 

My own birthing and severing,

My own arrival into promise. 

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