Before the monsoon descends in feverish
torrents, and The Great Migration begins,
the earth crumbles, crackles and slides
into tawny showers of sand and stone.

Parched prey pray to elude their nemeses,
who scour patches of brown grass,
their noses low and quivering, sniffing
the dust for the faintest fragrance of food.

Baboons heckle crocodiles, whose eggs they've stolen;
female lions pounce on defenseless gazelles. Necks snap.
Life looms for all in the gathering rain clouds.
Yet death will follow, stealthy as a leopard in tall grass.

We ***** the globe like a shaky-legged newborn
giraffe, awkward and vulnerable; dewy-eyed and gulping
the heavy particles of air for the sure scent of sustenance.
Our prey carries no smell, no taste, no movements.

It is sheer spirit shaped from the eternal whirlwinds
of dust that dance around our path. How else shall
we advance? Rain, when it comes, only splatters
in our eyes. We await The Great Migration of Souls.