Brian’sPoems

The Gods Must Be Crazy

The Gods Must Be Crazy
is the name of a film from my youth,
wherein a bush pilot tosses a bottle of Coke
from his cockpit window.

The bottle lands miraculously
on the Sub-Saharan sand without shattering.
It is later found by a curious tribesman
who decides to take the bottle to his village.

His tiny community is so remote,
no one there has ever seen a Coke bottle.
Yet once the villagers discover the bottle’s utility,
they begin to cherish the blue-green glass,
and even grant its possessor great prestige.

Eventually the Coke bottle threatens the harmony
of the usually cooperative community.
So the tribesman who found it
must undertake a journey to the end of the world,
where he will toss the bottle over.

Of course his odyssey abounds
with all kinds of bizarre encounters and hilarity.
Still eventually he arrives at the edge of the world,
at a place which reminds me of Victoria Falls,
where he returns the bottle -
presumably to the Crazy Gods who sent it.