The Hiss of Fossils

Africa is so arid.

We glide over Kenya, where I’ve never been.

The shrubby carpetweed and purslane clump;

outposts of savanna trees seen from our plane.

And the sudden grace of being airborne,

while just walking on clay-pack landfill,

a sunwashed track on a hillock of trash,

the exhilarant height from my head

to the ground,

returns me to that buried child,

diving most earnestly into play.