Africa is Calling

If I tell you this would you laugh at me?
Would you think I was crazy?
Would you walk away?

Africa is calling me
She speaks to my spirit at night
In dreams I travel to her
Imagining her quiet land, the flow of the people, brightly colored boubous
A young Irish woman, a white woman, I bathe in her waters

Africa is calling
The music soars through me
Waking me in the morning
And lulling me to sleep at night

Africa - I want to bury my feet in your hot sand
I want to journey over the Niger
I want to dance with you under the stars
To breathe you

Africa - The heat, the dust, the poverty, the suffering
All of this I will see too

Oneday I will put my feet on your soil - Africa
I will feel you, I will step inside you
And I will be enthralled by the colors, the sounds,
The spirit of the people
And I will see too the harsh reality of peoples lives, the impact of
colonialism
What have my people done to you?
The corruption, the pain, the violence
I will hold it all in my heart

Africa is calling
She spells out her name over my eyes, my hands
Rushing a wave over my entire body
I am drawn in, entranced

Whispering to me over the warm summer breeze
Whispering to my heart as a lover
Dreaming of his beauty
Dreaming of his eyes following mine
Dreaming of the sun on the warm desert earth
Dreaming Africa

Copyright Dorothy Johnson-Laird