November 2018
Michael L. Newell
astrangertotheland@yahoo.com
Bio Note: This is a poem from my three years in Kigali, Rwanda, living in a semi-rural valley in the middle of a good-sized city.  I lived in a motel next to a dirt road that during rainy season often seemed close to impassable, although people always seemed to manage to find a way through the ruts and rocks and mud and puddles. 

​I have a new book of poems, Meditation of an Old Man Standing on a Bridge, recently published by Bellowing Ark Press in Seattle. 

 
PASSING THE TIME AWAY

​
Along the winding dirt road outside my dwelling,
a mother escorts three shy, smiling, waving children
(two girl toddlers and an older brother), past where
I am leaning on a concrete wall painted the color of clay;
 
down at the bend in the road, the eternal soccer game, played
by five lads and one fierce lass, continues in a steady drizzle,
as a mother calls from a driveway to one heedless bairn;
a motorcycle zips past, lightning cracks over distant hills,
 
and thunder rolls impressively to where I stand smiling,
as the rain quickens; a man in his thirties runs past at a fast pace
waving, grinning, and wishing me, "Bon apres-midi."
Just another afternoon in Kigali standing beside a dirt road
 
in the middle of nowhere, merrily watching as time
and people pass me by, watching me watching.

                                                       Kigali, Rwanda, November 2011
© 2018 Michael L. Newell
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