The Ethiopian Afar

By Antony Fawcus

Some of these poems reflect the light caught in my daughter's camera during her work in a village community in the Ethiopian Afar. Others are more random shafts of light caught in the prism of my mind and split into a rainbow of reflections about life and death and the half-world of hopes and dreams that lies between. As is the case with rainbows,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Jul 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781760410056

Antony Fawcus

Antony Fawcus lives and writes poetry on a small farm behind Port Elliot, on the south coast of South Australia. He is widely travelled and has at various times been an aviator, a teacher and a tourism operator. Recent publications include The Ethiopian Afar and other poems (Ginninderra Press 2015) and a chapbook called Storms (Ginninderra Press 2014). 

Book preview

The Ethiopian Afar

Abraham

---

Who dares divine the thoughts of this dark child

Whose strength derives from Noah’s progeny.

With pride he strides across this ancient land

Where warring nomad clans still fight to claw

Subsistence from an unforgiving bowl,

The crucible that forged the birth of man.

Despite a searing sun that burns all hope

His dusky heart belongs to the Afar.²

The Shadow People

---

These are the shadow people,

part of the landscape,

backlit by the fiery glow of dusk

in this,

the hottest place on earth.

---

They pause awhile to drink

deep draughts of calm

from the cool night that overspills

the bones of this barren land

---

As beast nuzzles beast

breathing soft silences,

they stand, silhouetted

against an ancient opal sky.

---

They, like us, are shadows merely

etched in the afterglow of immortality

The Dancers

---

Three young girls

Were walking home at dusk

With their arms wrapped together

As one

---

When a sigh in the trees

Rippled through the leaves

And their toes started tapping

In the dust

---

Their toes started tapping

And itching to the rhythm

The syncopated rhythm

Of their dance

---

And you couldn’t see their feet

As they wove a birdlike flutter

In the utter joyful stutter

Of their dance

---

Then they swirled and they glided

And they gracefully subsided

In torrents of clear laughter

From their hearts

---

A taste of the hereafter

The gods have surely given

To those who dance together

In the dust

Corrugated Light

---

The girl in the red dress

sits in the half-light

facing darkness

but, like all children,

she turns her head

to the light

to follow her dreams

floating free.

Corrugated light falls on this child

as she turns her head

to watch

her dreams floating away.

The Water Carrier

---

Our water³ comes in bottles;

The corner store’s not far,

Just half a mile along the road,

A minute in the car.

---

Another way to look at it

If on a desert track;

A thousand paces there and then,

A thousand paces back.

---

Our corner store’s the river

With its languid, muddy flow.

It lies beyond the village

And that is where we go

---

Three times each day we travel

Along the dusty track,

A thousand paces home each time,

Five gallons on the back.

---

In days gone by, the goatskin,

Though it did not carry wine,

Clung with much more comfort

To the curving of the spine.

---

Some who carry water

Have a double load to bear,

If they cannot carry both of them

They drop their waters there.

---

A thousand sorrows wait for those

Who miscarry on the track

But years go by and water is

Still borne upon their back.

Contagious Laughter

---

This desert daughter flirts with life itself

She brushes worldly woes away like flies

A little imp of mischief parts her lips

And lurks within her lovely laughing eyes

---

Her laughter spreads contagion like a spark

That sets off smiles in all who linger near

It lights a fire that warms the wand’ring hearts

Of men who seek a love and life to share.

---

Even in the desert there are flowers

Decked out in colours won from mother earth,