The Sunbirds set the rhythm.
Eremomela lead the afternoon in soulful funk.
Amber heat blisters through the gaps in the trees, the southern summer melting the horizon into rippling wax.
Chords are buzzing through the city dust, vibrations carried on cables and static.
Cicadas resonate electric frequencies hidden in the lush vegetation.
A dense wood wind cascades like hot resin down the mountain, it fills the space between branch and leaf, running under your arms, through the gaps in your fingers, it touches the earth and the sky in a single caress,
Humming like a low pan flute,
Stroking the sweat off your cheeks.
The insects love the heat,
Crickets rattle shake and chirp with the rasping of toads in their shady river beds.
The ochre strokes of grass brush up against each other to whisper and hush as they dance in the drift, humming bugs bumbling and darting from brush to brush.
Hot car horns call from afar, wailing to get out of the radiating sun as their metal bodies turn to gas ovens and windows turn light to laser beams,
Engines rumbling, motors chugging, percussive as breaks and beats.
The glowing day rocks on a thick composition, the air pulses and echoes through the dips and bends of the land,
Over the streets,
Across the african sky.