What is a Clock in the Mother Africa Cultural Exhibition?
Among the skulls,
arrowheads, and renderings,
a map burning lines —
cross-continent —
cross-globe —
where we came from —
Sub-Saraha to viral.
Watching our return flight:
that small plane burned the same, only
over water, in reverse,
completing the circle
within the circle we
didn’t know we’d started. After
all, what do we do to time?
That static
eye watching us skirt
and wane. We the ones
who blink.
30 hours into Thursday
we arrived.
Building on the poem from last week, this one continues to mull over a recent trip to South Africa. While there we attended an exhibit about the many remnants of early humans found in the caves along the coasts of South Africa.
At the exhibit, an interactive display animated the migration path of the first humans. On the flights, I watched the little GPS thingy as our route moved perfectly backward as we traveled back in time and back in time.
At a non-scientific and purely knee-jerk level, something about being there does feel like a cradle of some kind: the Indian Ocean ramming into the Atlantic Ocean, abundant and diverse sea life, abundant and diverse wildlife. I was struck by the many troubled layers of returning (a failed first emigration, colonists establishing trade routes, imported slaves, tourism) as well as the deep and difficult layers of remaining.
Thanks to D for helping me edit this one a bit to be (hopefully) less “you had to be there”.
With Gratitude,