goulbi

Each year the wild, long-waited rains

swept down upon my bushtown home,

their fury merging into one fierce torrent rushing down

the sloping land to rest together 

in the hollows of their rainy season lover, 

waiting goulbi – seasonal lake.

The goulbi lay nine months a year

pregnant with paradox, progression

marked by emptiness and cracking ground,

a shadow testament, a hope displayed by lack –

ringed round with baobabs wide

as little huts their branches shade

whose walls are made of bricks formed from

the goulbi’s flesh, the clay the disappearing waters

leave behind each harmattan.

The town grew up by exponents;

the goulbi shifted, sank like zebu bellies

in the droughts, carved out by soil creep
and brick demand; the rains are coming

round a little less, a little

more less every planting. And the goulbi

lies now ten months dry, cracked clay lips asking sama,

“will my Skywaters return?”

while poker-faced skies arch above, aloof and silent,

bearing witness to the lakebeds' age-old

giving, cracking, waiting

till the wandering, wild, long-waited rains

let goulbis hold them once again.

photo copyright of Joni Byker