Song from Otse Hill: A Poem by Richard Morgan

In dreams I watch the desert plain

As the light fades from the scene

My gaze towards the borderline

Where the parched fields turn to green

Held steady by horizon lines

The dry savannah yields to gloom

Summer lightning strikes the earth

And the herdsmen rush for home

Shadowed in the evening light

The kids are safely home from class

Thunder gathers, then descends

To flood the flatlands into glass

Here was lost a clear-eyed youth

I return in older years

In life’s defeat to Otse Hill

Weighed down by ordinary fears 

Let me see you one more time

In these raindrops thick and warm

Your thirsty flowers are opening

To catch the remnants of the storm

I will keep watch upon this hill

While the women greet and call

To the teasing, dancing clouds

For the summer rain to fall

I sing to praise this sacred hill

Where banished lovers fled to die

And yellow birds that saw them fall

Broadcast their stories where they fly

I sing to tell you how it was

When nations and the world were young

Clear skies of ancient memory

The blue notes of the desert song.

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