The Great Rift
\nby cricketjeff on February 2, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved
\nIn the African rift valley there are lakes of caustic mud,
\nWhere flamingoes guzzle algae in a pink, peculiar flood.
\nOther lakes are home to midges, many billion to a cloud,
\nDraping beaches, live with spiders, in an ever-moving shroud.<\/p>\n
When a trillion insect larvae are condensed into a soup,
\nThey’ll attract amazing fishes who’ll be feeling cock-a-hoop.
\nSoon the silver shoals of sardines feed the nations round the shore,
\nWhile a dinosaur-like lizard steals the spoils and waits for more.<\/p>\n
In a river full of hippos, crocodiles will lie in wait,
\nFor diseased and bloated bodies in anthrax-corrupted state.
\nBirds of unimagined colours flash the forests with their play,
\nWhile the mighty “smoke that thunders” shines with rainbows every day.<\/p>\n
In the living rooms and lounges of we nature loving loons,
\nThere are TVs pushing pictures of some gibbons and baboons,
\nI may never climb volcanoes, or chase leopards through the scree,
\nBut for showing me the magic I say “Thank-you BBC”.<\/p>\n
Author notes
\nJust watched the final programme of a short series about the nature of the East
\nAfrican Rift valley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Great Rift by cricketjeff on February 2, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved In the African rift valley there are lakes of caustic mud, Where flamingoes guzzle algae in a pink, peculiar flood. Other lakes are home to midges, many billion to a cloud, Draping beaches, live with spiders, in an ever-moving shroud. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9742,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4403","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7106,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4403\/revisions\/7106"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}