Herders Of The Kalahari Poem by gershon hepner

Herders of the Kalahari
in the nights when skies are starry,
timeless, where no clocks are ticking,
start their tales by softly clicking,
making at the very front
of their mouths a click, a stunt
that indicates the teller’s story,
maybe magic, maybe gory,
shows what didn’t happen really,
but imaginary merely,
by the herder’s mind invented,
embroidered, sometimes sweetly scented
like the flowers in the springtime
feeding butterflies whose wingtime
is often shorter than the fiction
told in Kalahari diction.
We for whom to click is never
possible are not as clever
as these herdsman, and our mores
let us mix in all our stories
fact and fiction without hinting
where the truth lies in the minting
of the Kalahari coinage,
using cloths to cover loinage,
without benefit of clicks
that reveal our verbal tricks.


5/9/06