It's The Africa In Me

It's The Africa In Me - Poem by Diana van den Berg

It’s the Africa in me
that loves the forest in which I wake,
that sees and hears its fauna and flora and revels in their names.

It’s the Africa in me
that you hear in my spirited conversation,
that shakes my shoulders as I sob my sorrows
or laugh my insides, inside-out.

It’s the Africa in me
that keeps me reading poetry deep into the night
and causes me to stroke the sinuous muscles of my striped, domestic cat
and kiss the muzzle of my gently nickering horse.

It’s the Africa in me
that has taught me how to love
and patches up the fragments of my soul after each disaster
and renews my zeal and increases my understanding
in preparation for the next onslaught.

It’s the Africa in me
that has carried me
from my first baby breath
and will support me to my very last.

I am truly a child born of Africa.