“The gawo at the field boundary” by Dan Grossman

Credit Hu Chen @huchenme @unsplash

The gawo on the field boundary

is more than just a shade tree 
for oxen to sleep under at noon.  
It’s also a perch for the egrets.

After the first rains the gawo sheds its leaves:  
the oxen find shade elsewhere
and the egrets keep watch from the crown.

Come the dry season the birds will fly 
south to Nigeria.  Likewise 
the clouds are not fixed in the space above.

Whether brought to earth in a sudden storm 
or soaked up by tree roots and river-beds
or blown west across the continent 

into dissolution, the clouds are no more 
than a diaspora of raindrops in exile 
from the ocean bed. The egrets, however,

can claim the sky as their home. Even 
with claws clutching the gawo branches
they’re perched at the edge

of their element. At sunset the egrets
swoop down into the oxen herd a Hausa boy 
leads towards water; the birds eat the bugs

in the dust the oxen kick up. The boy’s 
father climbs the gawo at dusk. He chops
at the crown but not the trunk:

he won’t cut to the core. God willing, 
the roots, holding down the earth, 
will drink life up into new branches. The gawo 

is more than a bridge between earth and sky
through which water passes.  The sap 
carries everything around and through it.

gawo: alcacia albida in the Hausa language