[[ 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
