© 2000 - 2003  Nii Parkes

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Dancing in the wind

Fabric flaps
in piano key harmony
around their heads.

Their hands
are of desert sand hue
and just as dry.

The sands define them.
The sands protect them.
The sands are them;
Dispersed at random
in the roar of misguided passions.

The fathers have no sons.
The sons have no fathers.
The children who dare to play
are soon gone.

The mothers have no hope.
The daughters have no dreams.
Women, men and children
always prepared.

For weddings
endless white weddings;

"dust to dust
I now declare you one.
Wrapped in white
head to foot
you may enter
the chamber of your wife."


Occasionally
there is helicopter music.
The matchmakers
making sure the two are united;
"We must protect our interests."

Maybe it is better
they marry so early.
for in the dust they are free
they can cross borders untargeted
they can play without listening out
they can fly without being labeled
they can escape injustice

and sometimes
when the days are silent
you can hear distant seas
washing their feet

and sometimes
when the nights are clear
you can see them
dancing in the wind.

Dust in piano key harmony.
No distinctions.
All men as one.

All poems are copyrighted and property of Nii Ayikwei Parkes.

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