Phil Salmon Poet Narrative

Odyssey From Africa 3c4a

CHAPTER 3c continued 


Till he happened to encounter 
A much stronger river hunter
Hideous Jurassic lizard
Pulled him down with no returning
 
Other crocodiles converging
Made straight lines like silver arrows
Churned and twisted in the water
Then the other three turned homeward 
 
Standing on the river's north bank
Matto, Lisa held each other 
Watched their parents struggle closer
In their flimsy leaking vessel
 
Till at last they gained the shoreline
And all four embraced each other 
Wept for joy at their reunion 
Then the children saw the monkey
 
As their parents told the story 
Of their orphaned ape companion 
Lisa tenderly bent down and
Lifted up the baboon infant 
 
"Can I have it as a pet, Mum?"
"I don't think that is a problem"
So the monkey was adopted 
Lisa chose to call her Rosy
 
 
CHAPTER 4 The Eagle
 
With that crisis now behind them
They continued trekking northward 
Feeling great relief and gladness 
Rosy scampered after Lisa
 
Kwona gave to Han the paired horns
She had severed from the bull's head
Han was curious at their shape, and
Cut and trimmed them with his hatchet 
 
He remembered watching children 
Playing with a wood-carved wing shape
How when thrown it flew while spinning
Sometimes changing its direction 
 
So he carved the pair of horns
Into a wing-like aerofoil
It was angled in its flat plane
Forming straight symmetric sections
 
Then they tested this new wing-form
Practiced how to throw it spinning
So it first flew straight and level
Then swerved up and back towards them
 
In their travelling that followed 
This new boomerang proved useful
Guinea fowl and grassland rodents 
Could be killed at quite a distance 
 
Han was skilled at fire-starting
Matto tried to learn the method
Which took patient dedication
That the boy found hard to master
 
They would light a fire at evening
Roast some bird or beast above it
Sometimes vegetables and shellfish
Then it smouldered through the night-time 
 
On they walked through grassy scrubland 
Sensed an inclination upwards
In the distance seeing jungle
Covering a hilly landscape 
 
One day Lisa and her brother 
Played at throw and fetch with Rosy
They would toss a stick or seashell
And the monkey would retrieve it 
 
Then an eagle spotted Rosy 
Started flying low toward them
Swooping fast across the grassland 
Seizing Rosy in its talons!
 
Han was watching as this happened 
As the children cried in horror
Quick the boomerang was readied
Han took careful aim and cast it

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