Picture Credit: Paul Musso Hay Festival 2019
If Heaven is Her Father’s Land, Her Father Can Keep It
Let the rains come in June not August. Yes, She wants to go where Evasrikuke sings, where she can grow Mbasri side by side, where Ezruli sucks nectar with bees as companions where water flows from ‘Hvako’ through rocks feeding the grass fields of Weli, the dwellers of ‘Namongeh’, downhill, she wants to see Kwai dancing, summon Ngomba, he carries Mozonje it drums for peace she wants to sit bare buttocks on the ground, watch the matriarch cleanses her chest with warm leaves from Iroko tree. Let the rains come in June not August. She can sing, ‘Ewuwe, Emma ma weh’ with lines across her face like wrinkles on the face of a battled hardened soldier, she wants to make aeroplanes with mango leaves, placing them in rivulets, to follow as they go down the gutter, into the stream, the river, disappearing with her dreams, Let the rains come in June not August, Augusts rains are crueller. In the distance, drummers play, chiefs and their servants gather palm wine flowing villagers dancing, children hide behind windows peeping for the face of Nganya fierce juju their time would come a boy and an old man sit across the field, wrestlers gather in Ewoka ya Wezruwa, women dress in fine garments, wrestlers jump up and down, bare chested twisting their biceps, suitors will travel from far and wide, the mating ritual has begun. Let the rains come in June not August. She wants to fish in Mosreh catching prawns with palm nuts as baits, to roast and dine with banana leaves, to play hopscotch with Enanga and learn to skip with no ropes. When the rains come in June, She will catch bullfrogs just below the fountains of Woteke village, buy ripe palm nuts in ‘Zroppo Zralli’ sit under the Iroko tree gazing at the mountains counting the clouds as they come and go. Let the rains come in June not August. She can hold hands with Ikomi, like lovers do, play hide and seek between boulders abandoned by the great volcano of 86 under tea plantations and dream. Truly, If heaven is her father’s land, her father can keep it.
Notes to poem Evasrikuke: an ancient bird full of mystics Mbasri: maize plant Hvako: mountain Ewoka ya Wezruwa: wrestling grounds Kwai: a kite
Bones
a distorted civilization, buried here, Whore house of a duke, once stood here, Tight fitted shoes, under equatorial sun, our grandparents waited here, Sweating. In silence, they waited, singing anthems to foreign kings and their queens, they were here. Can’t you see the bones?
Fragments
Summers negative horizons pestering, dead trees not lasting, still leaves betraying their roots. Hurricanes and blurred visions, like birds flying zigzag then landing on their narrow perch. One can monitor the winds from here. Step by step they marched, singing nursery rhymes. Flags and effigies they erected, swinging in the directions of the winds.
These are not the streets I used to know.
Animals wash their bodies in fermented seeds, leftovers, Men dancing with empty bottles of liquor, a lone bee buzzes, sucking nectar from nearby hibiscus, haggard its breathing, dying with each stride, it falls. Red lightning strikes, September rain pours, the king’s whip rips.
These are not the streets I used to know.
Brown dark his hairline, preachers come and go, marchers of gaiety, lamentations from a pipers whistle. In the village of Umuofia Okonkwo fought a good fight. These winds brought quarrels, a curse amongst us hybrids.
These are not the streets of my youth.
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[…] feedback from my lecturers at the university. Three of the poems got published in the prestigious Wild Court. Not only this, I decided to submit the poems I wrote over the lockdown to Seren Books and I […]