African Dreams: Sahara

Photographs taken in Algeria and Mali during a Sahara crossing. Words from the sequence African Dreams.

A diary of this journey is here. A short video here.

Pause

Silence swells
until they are
free to be meaningless

These moments recalled
as the ache
begins in the flesh

Last year
eyes caught
in the small light
seem to move

Ways of belonging
invade his dreams
for he didn’t understand
their loneliness
just then

Then
her hands closed
his eyes seeing that
part of them which
feels and screams
their need to touch

The room falls silent
a casualty of your presence

rjh — from a sequence African Dreams, 1991 revised 2014.

Promises

It could be that they know
what they are capable of
forgetting the universe
while the wind falls silent
as something crouches
at the edge of the light

These
days and nights
don’t belong in this world
or to those two people

She taught him to sing
before he learnt to speak

They don’t need a sacrifice
or the seagull’s cry
which pierced the dying afternoon
and still echoes
where silence begins

rjh — from a sequence African Dreams

Photograph by Hisano Hisashi, 1939