(Note this was drafted before Christmas)
England may have a white Christmas again.
The air is sharper,
Grass looking greyer,
Sun advancing later,
Retreating earlier,
Shops looking red, white and greener,
Parents’ wallets emptier
As children’s hands get fuller,
Landscapes looking barer
As new life fears to grow anymore.
No frost,
No snow yet
But my bloodless fingers are divining in that direction.
Never mind the thermometer,
The extra bodies that would’ve cushioned us
All headed south for the Brexit
Abandoning us to the omnipresent lovelessness.
Millennia ago God warned Yima
In Zarathushtra’s texts
Of the onset of God’s dark side:
A winter, so deadly cold
Only the fittest of humans & plants & animals
Deserved to survive it
By living underground for a thousand years.
Might we be seeing its return?
Might Jesus’s death have not been enough
To quench God’s breath of death
Blowing upon this side of the world?
What to do?
What to do…?
What to do…
Brain retreating from consciousness.
Heart supplying less due to decreasing demand.
Lights out for the optics.
Sleep
And dream
And remember a place
Where love was inescapable,
Where people were interested in knowing you,
Speaking to you,
Hearing you,
Children greeting you with a hug
Without fear of being politically incorrect.
Beaches remember they’re meant to be sandy
Not stony.
Even crocodiles are so satiated
You can touch them without danger.
Chickens, goats, cows and donkeys
Grow up knowing what outdoors looks like.
Ask and you really shall receive;
The thousand helping hands that in the West
Would be stretching underhanded from a distance
Here are unashamed to lead you,
Write you into the pages of history,
The scene of your destiny.
In the birthplace of Jollof rice,
Yassa, domoda, sorrel and baobab juice
Fill the soul as well as the stomach
Then a Vimto to top it off.
Property is proper
Cheap enough to not need rent or mortgage,
To actually belong to me.
Citizens have evolved
Past the Qur’an’s rule to lower their gaze
Because women needn’t fear for their modesty.
Curious, fascinated and lusting
Eyes on me;
Melaninated huwriy existing before Judgement Day.
This is it.
I’ve made up my mind.
This is where I want to be.
This is where I’m meant to be.
This is where I feel at ease laying roots
Maybe inspiring a new Alex Haley.
This is home.
© One Tawny Stranger, November 2017
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