Maasai

I met a stranger
as I sat in the pick-up
surveying unfolding savannah
from an elevated hill.
 
He had materialized from the
fresh and scented earth
dressed in Maasai garb
and approached the car
 
with a stranger’s greeting
I’ve only known
on this continent,
where everyone might need a friend
some day.
 
He was well into his years,
with weather beaten face
exhibiting a dose
of pure integrity,
 
a red shuka
draped in the local way,
tied in with a huge
intimidating panga
swinging from his belt.
 
I was not afraid.
And soon we got to talking
in a cobbled mixture
of English and Swahili
(I cannot speak Maasai).
 
He didn’t know how old he was,
but his eyes betrayed
a careworn fatigue.
 
His family grown up,
departed;
his purpose diminished
and forgotten.
 
So he had returned
to the nomadic life,
the story into which
he’d been created.
 
I reached into the vehicle
to offer him water
and when I turned back,
found him gone,
 
dissolved into the bush
as dark clouds
threatened the sunset.

16th V 2025

Through the looking glass

I gave you some advice last night over the phone.
You were worried your best friend
was being unfair to someone
and wouldn’t change her position.

I suggested your friendship would allow you
to act as a mirror and encourage some introspection.
To examine her position.

This morning
I looked at my face in the mirror
for the first time since childhood.

At some point in my life
I decided I wouldn’t look at myself.
It would be a vain thing to do.

But now I wonder if I was scared of what I might see.

Scared to know how others saw me.
Scared of what was behind those eyes.
Scared to witness the passage of time.

And to be honest
I was OK with what I saw,
the decay
the grey

and I saw my smile
for the first time,
and liked it.

John H Davies
2nd X 2024

Exit strategy

At least twice a month
he’d wake up
wishing he’d never been born.
 
He was used to the feeling,
which had accelerated
with the years
 
especially on reaching
a time of life when
people who’d led
 
ordinary ones were
thinking about retirement
 and settling down.
 
No chance in his case,
his pension stolen,
he’d need to work
 
for several years.
So it would be easier
to end it all,
 
to ease the pain,
the burden,
the responsibility.
 
There were two ways
to accomplish this,
he fantasized:
 
The first to discover
a means to depart
that did not hurt,
 
the other to suddenly
come into money.
So every week
 
he checked the lottery
in the vain hope
his numbers came up.
 
John H Davies
19 VIII 2024

Clocks back

Only silence
in the early hour
of grey October.
Just the guiding ticks

of unseen clocks
disturb the dawn.
Waiting to greet the
guardian who’ll gently

cease their beat.
One hour of rest
in all the year
as gentle time

adjusts her state,
and dutifully waits
to compensate.
Imagine what great deeds

might be achieved
in this, the absent hour?
What miracles might occur
if folk would stop

and contemplate.
And all too soon
the virtual hour is past.
And who’s to judge

if we employed it well,
and used its spell
to good effect?
For now the clocks,

awakened
tick again.
Accompanying Earth’s
rhythmic pulse

to test our spirits
without fear,
and meet the darker half
of the year.

28th X 2007 (re-worked 17th XI 2024)

Foot prints

We met again for the first time
after fourteen years, we’d calculated.
Our parents gone,
she came to the cradle of humanity
to restart our nascent journey.
 
And memories arrived on the flood,
as a Serengeti dry riverbed
fills in minutes
after long anticipated rains,
 
rejuvenating the germ and spirit of life
across the plains,
attending to nature’s shortcomings;
washing away old prejudice.
 
I was happy we ignored those things
that had separated us, instead
choosing to acknowledge
our shared heritage;
the joy and privilege
gifted to us.
 
And we both felt a warmth
to remember we
had a sibling still,
for there was always a niggle…
as a twin detects an absence
of the other.
 
Was it ever thus
for homo sapiens and his
forebears, whose footprints
are embedded in
ancient lava fields
not far from here?
 
For those social complexities,
developed and evolved over
three million years
and arriving at us,
make our fourteen
seem rather trivial.

(for Sian)
  
John H Davies
11^th VI 2024
Serengeti

Perpetuity

These things will still be here.
When all is said and done
When nature’s course has run
When fate has taken leave of fear
And dealt the final blow
These things remain just so:

The ruffle of a feathered breast
The mystery of a chosen path
The haven of a traveler's rest
The crackle of a warming hearth

The outline of an ancient hill
The bleating of a newborn lamb
The quiet of an evening still
The stars unchanged since dawn of man

The harmony of season’s birth
The memory of a special friend
A chance remark that ends in mirth
A friendship that will never end

The joy of a resolvéd chord
The welcome of a loving child
A pleasure borne of due reward
The fervour of a heart beguiled

The comfort of a knowing glance
The harbour of a fond embrace
A love that grows from fleeting glance
And deepens till it bears no trace

These things will still be here
When all is said and done
When nature’s course has run
When fate has taken leave of fear
And dealt the final blow
These things remain just so.

2011
John H Davies

Immoral support

The pre-op sister spoke in reassuring,
confident tones and you seemed fine
as you took it all in, matter of fact.

Yet despite this, there was a brief
moment when the reality of what
you would soon undertake

hit me square between the eyes.
But I couldn’t show it, as I was
there for moral support. I couldn’t

show how much I admired you
and how much harder I loved you -
if that was possible.



John H Davies
23rd August 2010 

Rough Justice

It seemed fair to assume
there’d be thieves in a prison,
but after our last belonging
had finally gone the way
of the others, and we still
had no idea who the culprit was,
we planted an imaginary object
under the bunk of the
most likely candidate
and beat the shit out of him.
There wasn’t any more trouble
for a while.


John H Davies
2nd April 2011 

There’s more fruit this year

There’s more fruit this year
hanging from the trees.
A bumper crop, but
one less letter home.

Today will to a certain boy
acknowledge a right of way

that angry motorists
at home feel their duty
to display, vocally

on some congested motorway
that is their world.

But here, the guardsman
cries a different cry,
because he’s probably going to die -
‘Incoming!’ And his CSM
reinforces the lie

or the truth
that no-one dies.
Not on his watch.

And as he fades

he confuses words
intoned in an East Midlands
lilt…
‘Allahu Akbar’
Which roughly translated says:
‘Not today my son.’


John H Davies
20th XIII 2013