(For Professor Isidore
Diala, Teacher, Friend and Muse, for his croaky rumbling laughter that
completes an aspect of creation)
And what more can I do since
I'm only a man?
A small man painfully
insignificant.
I'm no nightingale else I
would trouble the quiet of the night
With adulations that never
flatter; songs that marry both poetry and truth.
Were I a kiwi, I would fly
back into your past
And erase any memory of
suffering
But why shall I?
The scars on your body
As you got swallowed by books
in Cambridge and elsewhere
Grew out and became the stars
we see today.
Or were I an eagle, I would
mount on your wings and soar a(way)
But I doubt whether I would
keep up with your pace
,
For there are tired eagles and
eagles
.
But I'm just a vulture
And I've chosen to encircle
where the catch of great hunters lie
To, as a self-appointed
minstrel, sing
For you and for the world you
en(word)
Maybe, I just hope, the people
could see you whole
Moments
of your absence, sweet soul...
... Are
What
else could be truer than these virgin lines?
Snapshot
of hollow days
Capturing
our wrinkled visions
In
the eloquence of its translucent annotation
We,
gazing and groping, watch as a punctuated silence
Descending
from the punctured cloud
Threatened
to stifle the air you left behind
The
corrugated laughter of our lips
Had
to master the symphony of temporary numbness
Till
time's ripe
Till
we’re awakened by the song of your return
The
days you spent away from us were
Colour of leafs on frowning harmattan days
Dried–grey
and faltering–falling
But
like hope of rain to-come
We
held onto the skeleton of the things we shared
Waiting
and hoping that
August
would hit the earth with waters
The skeleton would receive flesh and freshen
up
Words
would come from you, and
Did
you know what happened in the day of Ezekiel?
Breathe
on its withered nostrils
The
thing between dreaming and dream–in,
I've learned
Like
the edentulous mouth of a god-not-forsaken old
woman
Does
not invent pain but paint and art
For
it was, and still is
How magnet kisses metal
Separated
they may seem
Yet,
they drag each other closer for love and belonging
Or
should I say each drags itself nearer for a touch that would last?
The
moments of your absence, teacher and friend
Is
winter; freezing and soulless
But
you know, it prepares us for the abiding sweetness of summer
It,
just like the beginning of everything beautiful
Announces
your return to us
And
now, here you are
Among
us; your friends and brothers
Little
creatures of a not-little god
Need
we say welcome to you? he, who always is ours
Anuonye Chibueze Darlington, teacher and writer, writes about the many forms and colours the human heart could possess. Last year his work was shortlisted by the Ibadan Poetry Foundation. His short stories, essays and poems have appeared on Brittle Paper, Coal, Black Boy Review and Storried.
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