i have lost touch over the years
with the hot africa inside me

illness and all - i spread to root
in the red earth siphoned the sun

loved the black inflections of my eyes
cut callow cords and found new forms

felt free to fashion and freely raised
orchards of feelings where the groves

were rife with desiccated pens
but all the time my ears insistent to

the sounds of england harping at
my back rehearsing self's return

and i came back propelled against
the growing grains inside - to wring

futures from a skin the times had sloughed
and now (eleven years since then)

uganda's gone its own way into grief
and many i must have taught amin

has killed - i rush about my own concerns
unable to erupt the loathing that

consumes all rational response
but lost to know the meeting point

for what uganda opened out in me
and what now lacerates its dreams

uganda (victim to a white
man's piece of chalk) now victim to
a gloated bitterness in black
your griefs have swamped the nile

and i lounge here (a long way home)
disturbed and pillowed by these words