Green Sahara

The Great Sahara desert as large as the continental United States a deadly vast searing wasteland of sand dunes mountain high The expansive buckle of the world's desert belt void of color dotted by scarce oases of what once was. Twenty thousand years ago with just a wobble of the earth's axis monsoon rains seasonally showered the Sahara plains Feeding waterways of rivers and mega fresh water lakes abundance of sea creatures thrive Green Sahara was alive. Witness from cave paintings of a world the winds of sands erased.A world of green savannas full of animals to hunt and herd. Elephants, giraffes, gazelles, ostriches and lions too. People in villages fished and swam the mighty lakes. Beware of hippos , crocodiles and turtles that bite Fossils of shell fish tell the tales of a lush time long ago. Cattle and goats domesticated, crops grew and ripen in fertle soil. Was this the Garden of Eden now guarded by deadly heat and buried by time and shifting sands. Swamplands and rainforest stretched through North Africa. Life was good and plentiful for our ancient ancestors. Even whale bones bare witness to a time of a great sea. Of bays and lagoons and shores of beaches tropical in air. A different time blown away by dry winds and buried beneath the sands Green Sahara will return again Like clockwork the pendulum of wet to dry happens every twenty thousand years We are in the fifth millennium of a dry spell Within fifteen thousand years a tilt a wobble of the earth's axis and Green Sahara begins again.