On the track to Bulawayo , arrow straight for a century

of miles, a water tank, empty and abandoned, waits

for a Northern 4-8-4 that never comes.

It is years since the tank held water, or rails sang

with approaching locomotives, up from the Cape.

This was Rhodes’ steel road, hoping for the distant bazaars of

Cairo and the Med. A dream alone. It never

forged its link through pink protectorates and colonies.

Rhodes died. and the vision ran out like water

 in the desert, somewhere north of Victoria Falls,

the smoke that thunders. Today there is no rush

of steam choking at a train’s open windows.

Africa is overflown, the colonial project discredited.

Telegraph poles stand empty , their thirteen lines

long gone, the messages of trade and order lost.

 

Our train’s restored and regal, at strolling speed

evokes a land of almost, never was.

We toast the day’s horizons, the baobab trees,

The dry Savannahs with their curious giraffes.

Half a mile ahead the line curves – we glimpse

the Chinese diesels, fancy we can hear their distant

growl as carriage wheels they click and scream.

 

At home from school time in the simple townships

children dressed in smart black uniforms

with bright school bags, wave and laugh after

this weekly phantasm which leaves them all behind.

Beyond, The human world slips into myths,

tears up its promises, and overlooked the lion sleeps,

impala step on dainty feet, and wait,

 a startled hippo shows an angry mouth.