Dusk and Dust
The long African journeys start at dusk Taking advantage of cooler yet still hot times Dimly lit machines hit the road in a flurry Destiny stands on the roadside to hike a ride It will leave you at a crossing or in a bend Or it will follow you to your destination Photo Hugh Ardoin […]
A mottled tropical sky quickly turning purple The dust of a long hot day settles above the trees The Saharan night will come like the flick of a switch And the Southern Cross will light the sky for the lost traveler Eternity rides camelback across Africa with the long salt caravans Photo Hugh Ardoin The […]
Last minute shopping before dark The golden hour is in the purple blue phase Tropical night will suddenly drop like a curtain Birds will go silent as the frogs pick-up the music The unnerving hum of hungry mosquito hordes Photo Hugh Ardoin Niamey Dusk and Dust Gallery
Stalls crumbling under an avalanche of fruit and greens The Garden of Eden’s open gates and a wireless social network Seen from the Western colonial pedestal, Africa was the beggar in rags Now they enjoy the freedom and the food that Europeans queue for Imagine Southbound boatloads of asylum-seekers crossing the Mediterranean As The Book […]
Away from the Western selfish materialist societies Where confinement is made possible by individualism Where a two persons gathering becomes a legal limit And lockup has a meaning only because of the locks Exceptionalism is the disease, fortunately less contagious Self-isolation is just an acute form of Narcissism This ignorance may save the ‘invisible’ part […]
The whitest ceramics in the heart of sub-Saharan Africa Shiny chalices cupped to gather the rarest water of the desert The miracle is almost there, lost somewhere amongst mirages Meanwhile vendors relax in the shade waiting for the the rain or the customer Whichever will come first.. Hugh Ardoin The Niamey Streets Gallery
Tasked with the daunting mission to haul the desert away An ageing green truck waits for cooler times to start its work Idle men on top watch the shovels intently, but they refuse to move on their own Victory is earned in blood sweat and tears regardless of the help of divine winds While men […]
Travelling at the speed of light along the dusty roads Entering Niamey through the magical gates of dusk When dust mixes with the mist of a past torrid day The sky still shows patches of light blue and fiery clouds Neon lights slowly wake their flickering heads To stand up and fight the incoming darkness […]
Crossing the bridge over the river and the rice paddies Racing against the twilight’s extinction man beats donkey And the first will one day be the last in the orders of disorder Night will come to him with swarms of giant bats like flying demons The incubus will come under the guise of night, a […]