calling earthlings

In deepest Africa, straddling the equator, a son of the much maligned continent, caught squarely between a rapidly vanishing yesterday and an already present tomorrow. Today. Am I. Pouring libations to my ancestors, feeling a kinship with the soil that to non-African sensibilities is so much mumbo jumbo. Yet, even without Desiderata to affirm it for me, I know that I do have a right to be here. As much of an earthling as a Wall Street broker or a Soviet cosmonaut. And yet. And yet.