PIANO AND DRUMS

When at break of day at a riverside 

I hear jungle drums telegraphing 

the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw 

like bleeding flesh, speaking of 

primal youth and the beginning,
I see the panther ready to pounce,
the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with spears poised;

And my blood ripples, turns torrent, 

topples the years and at once I’m
in my mother’s lap a suckling;
at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts 

in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.

Then I hear a wailing piano
solo speaking of complex ways
in tear-furrowed concerto;
of far-away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, 

crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
of its complexities, it ends in the middle 

of a phrase at a daggerpoint. 

And I lost in the morning mist
of an age at a riverside keep 

wandering in the mystic rhythm 

of jungle drums and the concerto.

- Gabriel Okara

I am in love with how vivid the imagery is in this poem!!