Inside fire’s crackled circle,
The cricket’s chorus weaves
Its night-time spells, and
Slumber gently beckons.
Darkness edges to and fro,
And stealthily steals fire’s light.
Beyond its pulsing gloom, stalks
The shaman’s shade. And,
Africa’s creatures in the night.

Chill noise
Chills the bone,
On breathless wind is blown.
Wild cries, like insane mirth
She calls her bristling kindred
From the earth.

A matriarch, the clan she steers.
This blunt-featured creature,
Is both mother and a teacher
With scarred face and ragged ears.
Like some prehistoric kind of dog or
Savage afterthought of primal God.

Keen nose that knows
How hard is life
Paws tread the knife: survival’s edge.
Still they tug at risk’s frayed thread,
Flaunt flaxen pride of feline dread.

The lion is King of beasts they say
By tooth and claw, and roar he reigns
Of lesser size, the bitch; she yet defies,
The hyena;
Is the Queen of, Africa’s dusty plains.