African Garden in Mid-Summer

It was a different world…
with pink tips
and smaller corners
It had leapt out of a crystal bowl
just set on the table…

Zinnahs’ eyes stared back
when the hedges barked
and the leaves clapped at the distant human laughter
she could not recognize

It lay by the sea
across the road
from where we crouched
where tree stumps had stood to protect our backs
against the approaching ocean winds

There the rocks were brown and hard
the waves splashed against the palms
of our slipping hands
in quest of an answer

Pink it was
all over
The hibiscus dreamt it in the African night
and it landed on Zinnah’s lashes
on that sky-filled afternoon

It spoke a new language to us
as luscious as an unpeeled papaya
and green as an unopened gift

All the promises of endless books
on seas of shelves
and fragrances of all
forgotten gardens
it would let us have...