Are you a tourist or
A volcanologist my dear?
With a painful joy
To a live volcano getting near,
Do you want to pay homage
To earth’s nadir
Conscious that beneath a sea level
A sweltering heat you can bear?
Then to Erta Ale go you not why
Found under Ethiopia’s sky?
With a style jumping high,
Hitting the ground
Beating drums, on their waists,
Sabers tied around
Afro men along with braided women,
With butter greased hair,
The latter ululating and clapping
In a row facing each other
Chant a love song
“My feeling for you is strong! ”
The male herd camel,
While women babysit, prepare food
And make short huts
With tiny malleable wood.
Also dot the mirage-forming sand
Huts grand.
Are you a tourist my dear
Eager to see about
Out of the ordinary you heard
Say about multicolored magma
Volcano’s dusts,
Disgorged out of earth’s crust?
Do you want to see a scenery
You have not seen
Since you were born,
How in a motley garment
Mother nature itself adorn
Come then to Ethiopia,
Located in Africa’s horn?
Visit Erta Ale,
On earth
To run away from earth
Enjoying its hearth.
You will witness
The extraction of salt
In a volcano-formed fault.
BY ALEM HAILU G/KRISTOS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 1 JUNE 2024
