Paradise Engines

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Where will you find me?
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Wo findest du mich
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Where will you find me?
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Wo findest du mich
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People say Mungo Park was the first of the great colonial missionary explorers . He was born on the Yarrow Water in Selkirk, and drowned  some four thousand seven hundred odd miles away, in the Niger River. 
The Royal Africa Company paid four thousand pounds  compensation to his widow.
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Where will you find me?
Pirogues unstitch the border,
I, Citizen, repeat the field.
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Trouve moi
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Where will you find me?
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George Santayana once wrote "People never believe in volcanoes until the lava overtakes them." 
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Code Blue
for
bone
reefs,
the lower Sanaga outgassing
Code Blue
for
seagrass
flourish.
Code Blue 
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Wo findest du mich?
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Daily tides dissolve the deceitfully solid architecture of mudflats and sandbanks where  black tern hunt giant dragonflies. 
Where will you find me?
On the water, men in pirogues hunt butterflies. 
The line of water we follow drains from a region of  active and extinct volcanoes.
This wide piece of water marks the old border between the German and British Cameroon. 
We sit in the creak of old cane chairs. 
In the morning a molten stream has severed our neighbourhood from the other parts of town.
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The rivers are a royal road to Africa’s heart.
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Where will you find me?
in the river, in the road, on the water,
tern hunt giant dragonflies,
in the tide, men in pirogues race pelicans,
familiar bones undermine each sandbank
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Wo findest du mich?
Code Blue, Citizen
mudflats deport rails 
sandbanks deport giant herons
Waves deport marabou storks
Code Blue, Citizen
repeat, Citizen,
repeat rails 
repeat mudflats
repeat sandbanks 
repeat giant herons
repeat waves 
repeat mangroves 
repeat marabou storks
Citizen, repeat
Paradise engines 
repeat the Rio Del Rey
and Saviour Island 
reconstitute lapwings
fatten finfoot 
reanimate the flyways 
repeat, Citizen,
repeat mangroves and Saviour Island
Citizen, repeat the field
Citizen,
I, manatee
I, lapwings 
I, pelicans 
Where seabirds hunt, there am I
Where you find me, waves no enemy
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Where you will find me
pirogues unstitch the border 
Find me.
We were never damned, we were only unarmed.