Contributor: Linda B. Gamble

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We rise with the sun
into a blue-gray sky. I feel weightless.
Yellow, peach, vermillion, streak
the horizon. Shadows below fall
away, reveal the movement of hundreds:
zebra in orderly rows, wildebeests’
disordered wanderings, impalas,
the graceful leaps of gazelles. Clouds
of dust billow as each passes beneath.

Wind shifts, whips my hair, we turn
to see giraffes, their stilt walking
gait, deceptively awkward, elephants
lumbering in the background young
clustered in group’s center or
toddling between mother’s legs,
her body a safeguard from sun or harm

Turning again, a 360 panorama.
Flame whooshes us higher. We
glide over acacia trees, look
down to grass burnished yellow
with drought, a canvas
for our balloon’s shadow

far less intrusive than the miles
of rutted roads, sound and pollution
of safari vehicles. We float in
surreal silence, the land stretching
beyond my sight, air, electric with life.
There is a wildness from this view,
an expansive majesty lost in the close-up.
In the jeep I became a predator. Here,
I am a worshipper. My skin prickles.


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