Abdourahman A. Waberi is a poet, novelist, and essayist. He was born in what is now known as the Republic of Djibouti and is a major voice in African postcolonial studies. Waberi is the author of the novel In the United States of Africa (Bison Books, 2009) and has received a multitude of awards and honors, including a PEN France prize and, most recently, a medal from the French Academy. He is an associate professor of French at George Washington University. His newest poetry collection, When We Only Have the Earth (Nebraska, 2025) translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson, was published in March.

In this ode to the earth and all its living creatures, French Djiboutian poet, novelist, and essayist Abdourahman A. Waberi sounds the alarm about our imperiled planet, where “the Sahel rises in you, in me / the Red Sea boils in you, in me / Nunvut is melting in you, in me.” This translation by Nancy Naomi Carlson preserves the rich musicality of the original French, as well as its frequent use of wordplay and often unusual word choice.

Waberi, a nomad at heart, takes us on a whirlwind tour across North America, Africa, and Europe, daring us to love the earth “beyond all rational thought” and to “turn into earth, both literally and figuratively,” as we “turn from vanity, fears, and other pointless rustling.” These lyrical, playful, and moving poems urge us to look for the truth and beauty hidden in our daily lives, singing of Waberi’s own enduring love for our endangered planet and also, more forcefully, exhorting us to join him in the collective fight to save our planet from destruction.
 

Wonder Train

We depart
Next stop: the South
Marseille
To sunny calanques

Silence blooms on your lips
Iridescent bronze bulbs
Bee candy
Mute honey

We place our bets
Let me cut out this minute
In the fabric of time
Hunched over, with a trembling hand, like others, tuck a flower
Between the pages of an ageless book

We speak
You are here, tense,
Stately in the vertical light
Lonely figure in the vast field
In your palm the dawn-colored dove
Warmer than all the oxen in the stable

Your wings seek love
The ether of divine flight
Sombrero against a background of gently sliding clouds
Glaciers gliding into the sprawling void
The oxen know nothing of cleansing the mind
They bellow, they graze,
They watch the train of the present
Come back in an instant

We pass by
Everything will quickly play out
No spotlights
No elevator music
All expectation is a mighty fever

For your valiant eye nothing impossible
To your patient ear, nothing ineffable
The eternal nestles in the air breathed by oxen
Stones, lotuses, cypresses, slugs
And us
And us
And us