Ode to the Bushman

under starlight
I lay one night
beside an innocent
on desert sand
caught in wonder

through Ages of Time
we meet again in this
desert space
Stone Age sage
and Nuclear Age child
face to face

How I delighted in thee Xai
delicate desert man
as we talked that night
under the dazzled light
of giraffes and laughs
and Father's might

What peace thy gift
brings to eye
showing me as you do
the devil on my back
and the face of God
on the sand

Each reaching a place
beyond fossil bone
in clay embrace
where I see you alive
in the museum of space
as a spoor within Time
a camera eye held by blood

How big and how far
that star
tall as a giraffe
one days walk and half
how it twinkles
when we laugh

inward and outward in
an endless breath
that reaches and teaches
peeling the veils
that cover the heart

Of all debts
fear must weigh the heaviest
all grace is the source
at the heart where
MaMa the Great Mother
kindly smiles

Your face is Her face
hand smack and rattle step
Her rhythm in life
an antique survived
miraculously to show me
the highway behind

All time is no time
with no empty place
in space for there are
worlds within worlds
if we would but see
the way