How Far the Dust Can Blow by Sebastian Hills

Sebastian Hills
1 Min Read
Image Credit: Cristian Ponce from Medium

We walked to mourn the prime minister’s son
his coffin draped in cloth twist from lightning.
A boy’s laugh got stuck in the dusty harmattan wind
in the haze, lighter than cassava chaff.

History is a cracked calabash. Men build
pyramids of salt, swear they’ll outlast the rains.
The farm god hums through cracked soil:
Even the stubborn iroko tree bows to termites.

Funeral tickets sold like hot palm wine at Sunset
Grief’s market where folks trade tears for a good seat.
The minister melted like shea butter in the sun,
his speeches ash in the harmattan’s dry throat.

The river doesn’t care about bridges. “Burn them!” she laughs,
“My water births and buries your iron bones.”
The boy’s name floats where moonlight coins sink—
a silverfish slipping through the fisherman’s net.

Hyenas chorus what the farm god knows:
You stack days like yams in a famine season.
Wind will scatter your tallest stories
to feed the millet fields of tomorrow.

I learned we’re all just like pounded Yam,
soft, steaming, forgotten by noon.
The Farm god leaves me a hoe and a proverb:
Plant your shadow where the soil remembers.

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