I inhale the sweet smell of the Jacaranda
purple like the stars of my childhood
Life gave me breath
where mountains adorned their blue crowns
breath gave me life in the valley of plenty
where black snaking rivers chased butterflies among white lilies

I smell the chemical silence of the concrete jungle
still as frigid death
I breathe in the scent of flowers
the chemical silence
and the lives slowly dying in the night

I am consumed by dreams of someday communing with spirit ancestors
where the dense forest of African evenings draws me into another world
a world I knew in the morning of my childhood
where clear streams were the essence of everything
life, joy and the purest source of love

now in the noon of life I stand erect
my breath comes in clouds of cigarette smoke
and my heart beats to the poisoned beat of nicotine
my soul is lost in the river of time
I walk with conflicting feelings
following a vagrant ray of sunlight through polluted footpaths
entwined like varicose veins through the willow and shrub

progressive minds build to destroy in the name of progress
yet we still ask for another chance for the last dance
before death places upon our shut eyelids her soft kiss

I wonder if a still-born future is a more natural gift
for the beautiful ones not yet born