asleep beneath the southern stars

asleep beneath the southern stars tonight near a small pile

of broken pottery intentionally placed even

now on graves all around me older than this country filled

with soil and bones of the first of West Africans immune

to malaria bound and chained here for rice plantations

—small nervous animals appear on nocturnal visits

and moss tossed by a late night breeze into the moonlight to

appear as grey-bearded phantasma dance and swing from trees

and a deep song of suffering drifts in the dark thick air

laden with steam it wraps you in its oppressive embrace

and it forces dense dream images of greener lands sent
by swift following spirits to harass our memories