Kiliminjaro

I'm going to stumble through
all the tense verbs, imperfect
simple future present past

There, floating, hanging
like ducks in Chinatown, every word
dead, waiting to be chewed, spit, shit

Sometimes I turn on the foreign language channels
to see if I can lip read
any better

It rained no it didn't
so much as cascade, proverbial buckets,
adjectives, nouns, adverbs insufficient for the torrent
on Kiliminjaro's flanks
post-climb, all 20 miles down from the highest huts
where I'd left my red guts
back to base camp in a single running descent
to keep the jelly in my skull from exploding.
We walked beneath the canopy, all I remember
is brown mud, brown bark, slate wet, a green leaf wall,
black shadow, tan thatch, charcoal shadowed doorways
silence silken as falling water
(learning that Gore-tex was no match for this rain)

and then a hand reached out
beckoning us out of the deluge
into the smoky cool beneath a thatch cone
while on the brazier fire, sized like an old Folgers' can
fire is the wrong word, it was much more efficient
a pot, a ladle, some words
they were speaking some words
perhaps Swahili. Jeannette tried French
once English got the head shake
and a bowl was offered, accepted.
We sipped. How many faces were there?

If there is shame, it's that I don't recall
who these people were, how many, their names and faces,
we were the strangers with shoes
and coats that cost a year's pay locally
but still couldn't keep out the rain
yet still swept in, sustained with a smile,
shared with

they would not accept our paper money
as the sky slipped away.