Power in Excess

The wife got me to the doctor last week
to check my sugar. In the waiting room
I read a magazine about a place in Africa
where red baboons wake early each morning,
stand still and face east, like they're praying,
not moving a single hair,
until the sun's whole self is up.

And there’s folk there, too,
who rise early like the baboons,
before the sun does. They spit on their palms,
rub them together and throw up their hands.
They clap and shout and dance and sing,
until they're sure they’ve got that ball of fire
pulled up for the day. Imagine thinking
you could hold that kind of power.

by Maria Fire