MIKE'S TRAVELS

ABOUT MIKE...

Mike is a world traveler. He was raised on the highway riding 'shotgun' for his mom from city to city as she lived out her fantasy of seeing the world around her. Being a single mom, she could not afford to take leisurely family vacations, so she moved her family with her each time she wanted to change locations.

Now, Mike has that same travel bug, except, his family stays rooted, he gets paid for his travels and enjoys every minute of it. Says he is definitely not ready for retirement. He has the best of two worlds. A happy family life, children and grandchildren.

WAY TO GO MIKE.

ODE TO AFRICA

By Etha Gray

Africa, my Africa, with your fertile,

Green valleys, dry desert sands;

Your bouquet of small and great animals

Roaming across rich and desolate lands;

Your people struggling to survive

Generations of political, spiritual and emotional rape;

Of your most inner bowels, down to the

Shores of your most outward Cape;

Your precious metals and gems stolen,

Ripped from your veins;

Leaving deep gaping sores, and you

Reeling, groaning, suffering from your pain;

Your people divided, frustrated,

Turned against each other;

Mutilating, killing, tearing down, trying

To rule their own brother;

Mothers cradling dying babies against

Their plague-filled breast;

Weeping, wailing, praying, welcoming

The relief brought by death.

MY HEART BLEEDS FOR YOU

Africa, my sweet Africa! I am descended

From your children, your babies, your seed;

Whose echoing cries of sorrow and pain

You were powerless to heed.

Chained, dragged, forcibly taken from you,

Carted off to distant, foreign lands;

Forced into slavery, bondage, degraded,

Dying at our captors hands.

For two hundred years we fought valiantly,

Bravely, for our freedom to secure;

Peace, at last, I rejoiced

No more indignities to endure.

Now, my people struggling to survive

Generations of political, spiritual and emotional rape;

Initiative, pride, hope, history lost,

Stolen, buried under racism's cape;

My people, divided, frustrated,

Turned against each other;

Mutilating, killing, raping, robbing,

Destroying their own brother.

Mothers with drugged out minds, abandoning

Babies, snuffing out their breath;

Plague-filled bodies spreading incurable

Diseases bringing slow lingering death;

MY SOUL MOURNS FOR US

Africa, my sweet, Africa! How you must long for the days when Your sons and daughters were kings, queens, emperors, builders, men of great and noble mind;

The days when your vast and fertile bosoms nourished,

Fed and cradled the beginnings of mankind.

Africa, my sweet, precious Africa, your

Though sorrow fills my soul in the deepest part;

It’s your tender song of love

That will eternally echo in my heart.

Africa! My dear, sweet and precious Africa!

I know your fears and pity your tears.

Oh, my Motherland, cradle of humanity, Ivory and Gold coast;

Your womb has held; your bosoms have nourished, great kings and queens of this world for which you may forever boast.

THE UNIVERSE WILL FOREVER HOLD YOU IN ITS REVERENCE

First published in Garden of My Soul 1995