Six Poems

Realworld
It was the very first Sunday
when light spread in pleats, and at ankle-height
night hurried out
like the shadows cast under the first settler's feet.

*

It came again the next day. It intimated
tomorrow: a place in time for things to happen,
for evening and morning,
for a fair working week, for the stumbling missionary

to find fresh water, the errant chief
to be eaten by a crocodile: and outside a place
where the rest would stay real:
for thoughts of the sullen boy selling cassava,

speculation of stricken daughters, a calling place,
a destination, a store house,
...