Waterholes are the lifeline for animals in the wilderness areas of Africa during the dry season, but they may also be death traps when they dry up.

Waterholes of the dry season

Dry waterholes have always held a fascination for me. I do not look at them with a view to the next rain season but as a page of a book telling of what has happened during the last days before they dried up.

At a long-dry water-hole

A script is inscribed

In an ancient lyrics

Dramas etched in mud

In bleached bones and sun caked dung

A silent testimony

The skull of the season

There can be no more dramatic indication of the harsh realities of the wilderness during the dry season than a skull of a previous drama littering the bare earth, or embraced by the new grass after the rains.

There is a skull lying in the grass

The green grass of the new season

The skull was there before the new grass grew

A victim of seasons past

The grass will grow and fade

But the skull will remain

No longer a victim but a part

Leigh Kemp