The African Origins of Civilization

Bennu bird, emerge from your ashes,
broadcast ecstatic cries
to the ibis, your kindred;
welcome a new sun rising from
Nile waters, like a bright flamingo
shrieking with joy…

Dawnsong. Jubilee. My bones and fossils
powder this proud land mankind
reclaims as Mother.
The Great Rift Valley, the Mountains
of the Moon, the Great Lakes region
blessed by a million mornings of legendary
dreamtimes, visions, times of living
gods, demons, royal ancestors: chants
which fertilized
the humid atmosphere
human aeons ago–fifty thousand years!
Yea. The swamps and wide savannahs
of the stellar people pregnant with
myriad myths and magic rituals; resounding