where to begin

[[ The destination might be almost anywhere, but I was thinking of Africa, our origin  It started while reading Ryszard Kapuściński, 'The Beginning: Collision, Ghana, 1958', in The Shadow of the Sun. I like the contrast between travel in the old days, when a traveler grew accustomed to the destination on the way there, to travel now, when you hop into a pressurized plane this morning and hop out of the plane on the other side of the world this evening. Also, the typical conflation of all countries and cultures on the African continent into the monolithic 'Africa' of Hollywood. ]]

not the romantic sort,

this is no port-to-port

idyllic expedition

there is no getting used to it, no getting used to it

this is the cheap flight

sleep upright overnight

no acclimatization

there is no getting used to it, no getting used to it

you're still breathing 

your own atmosphere

when they open the aircraft 

find your way through 

strange customs, the frontier,

before you feel the first draft  

and you're out 

in a street

in the heat

this is where we all began, where we all begin 

this is where we strip away and get down to skin  

let's take shade under this tree 

and --  listen to me -- let the continent 

drift slowly away

how many

languages,

cultures, and

kings here?

start by ad-

mitting you

don't know a

thing here

but 

welcome to here, 

welcome to here

one street in 

one city,

one nation 

traced out on 

a piece of earth

drifting slowly away

there is no getting used to it, no getting used to it

start by saying you don't know a thing