Offline in Zimbabwe

poem by Ken Holmes, Winter 2011

Disconnected, wireless-less and offline in Zim.
Time to re-connect with the earth, with myself.

No flights into the tell-tale imaginary world
Of opinions, clever sayings and favourite pics.
No Quicktime but quiet time
Watching the endless busyness of nature:
Picking up velvety brown cassia pods, two feet long,
Climbing impressive granite koppies to baboon cries
To see cave art, leopard spoor and ancient pot fragments
In burial sites, undisturbed for a thousand years

Walking for hour upon hour in baking bush
To glimpse the sables and giraffes grazing in peace,
Admiring the Rhodesian Ridgebacks muscular bounds
Through savannah edged with indigenous, tangled forests

And waiting, back in Harare,
To come across one of the slithery wonders
Mentioned on the neighbours gate: “Danger, Pythons!”.