Over the plains, the quiet
Hung down
Like a water sac.
It draped the baobabs –
Cool skin,
Caught in beads between
The eyes of
Water buff skulls,
And snuck behind your camera lens.

I saw how
The dead things flanked
Our tracks in the steamy peat, like
Knuckles glowering beneath
Stretched old flesh.
And how they spied on you –
Your flapping collar, your silver rim specs;
They saw a future friend.

Over the plains, when a Long-jawed beest
Kicked up combs
Of bush in
A quivering gush,
It meant to escape
The silence that preyed us.

We saw
The vultures on the nandi flames
Pulse their sooted wings.
You smiled and clicked.
And that was when
The silence struck you down.It
Rent the walls of your heart
Into a red and gleaming
Rift Valley.