Digging For Some Words

Wanderers and nomads have gone to see their chieftains
Will this be the end of the rain and the birds?
Who can send an emissary to speak to the seasons?
For the ravens and the crows already soak up the skies...

I'm digging for some words beneath the stones in Zimbabwe
I'm searching for a drum song in the jungles of Zaire
I'm groping for the blood-moon in the mountains of Malawi
Looking for the Lion of Ethiopia...

The setting dusk is darkened by the bark of the baboon
The frogs and the owls no longer call to the moon
The warlords have gathered, blue smoke hiss from teeth of chrome
And the baobab lies trembling in the boiling blood-loam

The fireplace is broken and the grinding stone too
Its million pieces flung across the plains of Africa
Each dusty fragment a seed from which grows
The memory of a debt that only you and I will know

Seven seasoned soldiers have been summoned from Saigon
A craven walkie talkie puts their bloodshot armor on
Some drink beer milk, some drink kinky-kola
Sheep dogs live in Outeniqua
Gun dogs in Angola

Flames lick the corners of each hungry horseman's smile
They have locusts in their scabbards and deserts in their eyes
Passing through the air they leave a sea of fetid rumors
As they ride across the skyline on a secret trail of lies

I found some words beneath a stone in Zimbabwe
I heard a distant drum song in the jungles of Zaire
The blood-moon spoke of war in the mountains of Malawi
But I never found the Lion of Ethiopia