Africa Poems

By Theodore Lyons

Africa Poems features the awesome continent of Africa, mankinds cradle; as well as
histories about the Serengeti and Sahara; some of Africas colorful leaders and explorers; the tragic genocides in Rwanda and Sudan; and the disasters in Zaire and Somalia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469108964

Theodore Lyons

Theodore Lyons majored in English at Illinois Wesleyan University and edited for several journals. His other books include 91 Gordon Street and Two Occult Tales.

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Copyright © 2011 by Theodore Lyons.

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Contents

Mère l’Afrique

La girafe et l’acacia

La savane

La forêt

Les oiseaux

Le figuier

Les bois

Le Kilimandjaro

Cléopâtre

Le Caire

Le Nil

Le désert

Gens du sable

Les chameaux

La côte d’or

Le Congo Belge

Président des choses

Le Zaïre

Le Ruanda

Le Soudan

La Somalie

Monsieur Botha

Monsieur Mandela

Monsieur Qadhafi

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Le tyran a posé devant lui ses mains nues

et, seul devant ces mains étrangères, ces Mères

presque exsangues sur le drap pourpre des nations,

seul contre ces ménades pâles de l’histoire

dont l’ombre lacère sans trêve l’univers,

il fix leur blancheur funèbre dans les âges

et sent la nuit grandir derrière elles, le sang

les soulever jusqu’au regard de dieu qui juge!

Pierre Emmanuel

The tyrant placed in front of him his naked hands

and, alone in front of these foreign hands, these Mothers

almost bloodless on the crimson sheet of the nations,

alone against these ashen madwomen of history

of which the shadow lacerates without truce the universe,

he stares at their funereal pallor in the ages

and feels the night grow behind them, the blood

raises them up to the gaze of god who judges!

Mère l’Afrique

Africa, about as old as the Earth, is man’s birthplace;

The oldest continent in the history of our human race.

Africa gave birth to man about four million years ago:

Yet Africa is still unaltered by earthquake or volcano.

Our posture, mind, and musculature are evolutionary;

Bodily capacities inherited from our African ancestry.

Africa: the world’s diamond mine and a mine of gold;

The world’s storehouse of copper and minerals of old;

So big, all of the United States could fit in the Sahara;

Africa, once the center of the supercontinent Pangaea.

The equator has crossed Africa for forty times an eon,

Fostering its evolution; in the mountains of Barberton,

Billions of years old, God’s first life form, fossil algae,

Feeds millions of flamingoes in Rift Valley waterways.

Africa’s crocodiles are close descendants of dinosaurs;

Brave archeologists have excavated their fossils galore.

Africa’s vistas and landscapes are surprisingly diverse

And practically forbid poets to describe them in verse:

From sunny savannas, snowcapped peaks seem to rise,

And Africa’s rivers feed desert vegetation of great size.

Central African lakes—Malawi, Tanganyika, Victoria—

Are among the world’s largest from Seattle to Pretoria.

The Congo river forests are a refuge for chimpanzees.

Sahel’s savannas extend from Sudan to the Senegalese,

Dividing Africa’s tropical regions from the hot Sahara.

Unique plants and animals have developed in Ethiopia.

Africa is kingdom to the giraffe, zebra, and rhinoceros;

And large animal populations—like the hippopotamus;

And mountain predators—lions, leopards, and cheetah;

And many other species—wild dogs, buffaloes, hyaena.

How