What We Think We Know

I.
This African sunset.
You read these words and think
        one thing, but
        I tell you
it is another.
I thought it would be like
Out of Africa, that I would be
        Meryl Streep
        in white
so romantic, breathing the plains,
stamping into dust, raising
my throaty voice towards
        something
        worthwhile.
This African sunset
is pretty, yes, and the
        smoke of the
        cooking fires
paint themselves like watercolors
against the hills
and chickens peck at the
        last scraps of rice
        in the dying light.
Rice and chickens, rice and
chickens, and a million little kids
slightly dumb from malnutrition
        top and stare
        at me, the
white woman on her porch
scribbling into her notebook
        as the sun
        goes down.
II.
This African sunset
is a process of the earth turning and
        the sun disappearing
        from this particular place.
So it does not belong to
Africa, it is process, it is
change.  My work is hard, I'm
        so tired, not sure
        of the worthiness of change
here, as the whole continent tries to
chase the sun, as if the west
were Mecca, and they would
        walk around and around
        like planets drawn by gravity
and I want Out of Africa, I'm
chewing on roots too bitter
to swallow, too
        starchy
        for food
It's happened, I've turned hard
as the baked earth, my hopes
thin as children, I want to go home
        where the problems seem
        to be what
the problems seem
to be.