Long valentine

There are deeper loves apart from humans,
the burnished copper of the sinking suns,
the sound of spinning wheels on laterite,
and heels on mud - the primal connections.

The acacias in their fortresses of thorns,
the smell of raindrops on the guinea corn,
the needlepoint of stars upon the night
on homing traffic and a faint air horn.

A love much deeper than skin-deep or flesh-, 
beyond the frames of every consciousness,
the instinct by which a leaf turns to light,
innate, intrinsic to its life process.

Carried over from each birth and rebirth
this long valentine to the sun and earth.