Evening talks

In the light of kerosene fire

On candles that dance

In the breeze

Black is the night

And heaven turns swarthy

When night falls like a victory

These talks about nothing

(And all)

Are like a spider's web woven

Of words' and sounds' sluggish secrete

A spider's web of words and music

In which our hearts' pleasures

Are caught

Some bread and tea

That we sell

On the roadside

And of which

In those hours

We eat

Are the small river in the soft waves of which

Night circulates

Some smoky odour takes my mind down

To a burning house in the bursting veins of the Zongo

Which in the dark sleepy air sings

Its parable of life

As wind's breath recites life's great kalima

And the crowded streets

And the resentless moon of this night

And her starts ivory

And the sweetness of being

Are forever in me

Like artful strings in the web of a spider

In which our hearts' universe came to reside