I’m in a garden full of fruits But I am not hungry, And what I crave only Is buried deep down in the roots. And I am waiting patiently For it to sprout again And no pleasure can dull the pain Or nourish me substantially. Some waits last long, longer Than a lifetime or two; Reincarnation is the cue To re-become younger and stronger. Don’t hurry your wounds, Let them heal at their own pace; Life and love are not a race, Some years have thirteen moons. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
English
HINDSIGHT AND THE PRESENT
When trying to understand people’s actions in the past, always remember this: Everything people did, they always did in the present. That moment was, for them, the only real thing that was. They did not have the vantage point of hindsight which you have now, relative to that moment.
The same thing applies today. This moment now, today, right now, which for you is the realest thing there is, and which confronts you with challenges that sometimes tear you apart, or options that fill you with certainty, this moment too will one day look different when seen in retrospect through the telescopic gaze of the hindsight of others and of yourself. When the world has changed and you too have become someone else.
Just like you’re sometimes not sure today what decision you should take, that’s how those people too were not sure yesterday what decision they should make. And just like you sometimes do something now with the certainty of its rightness, that’s how they too in certainty did something which today, with hindsight, we now realise was wrong. In retrospect. Consciousness is always trapped in the present. Even the consciousness that imagines the future, has itself not left the present.
The past is only the past today. Yesterday, when it was happening, it was not the past. It was the present. And being the present it felt just as real to everybody there and then as the present feels to you right now. Certain and iron-clad. Thus, every decision that everybody makes must always be judged in the light of the time and circumstances in which it was made, in order to really understand it.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
SPIRIT
When the weight of the world
Does not weigh you down
Because the sun within you is lighter
When the anger of their hatred
Does not darken your mind
Because the joy in your heart is brighter
When your Quietness
Does not stop You from winning
Because deep inside you’re a Fighter.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
NEW FORMS
The ground is drifting
How ever firmly you stand
How ever fast you run
The goalpost is shifting
The only changeless thing
Is the Will of God
Manifested in His Laws
That bind us in a firm ring
Go with the flow
Be not afraid of new forms
No matter what comes
It will help you to grow.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
GROUP
When I‘m in the group of You
I am one of you
And everything in me that is you
Comes out of me and connects with you
Because in that moment this is me
You are me and I am you
Three and two and one too.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
OWN KIND
Something has changed –
Experiences and the reflection
Thereupon have rearranged
My priorities and direction.
I no longer feel estranged
In the midst of strangers –
For I have found my own kind
And we are of one mind
In the face of the world’s dangers.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
WE AND THE WORLD
We came into the world
And the world came into us
We left the world
But the world did not leave us
And now we’re stuck here
Reincarnating over and over again
Unfinished with the world
And yet unsatisfied with the world too
Now knowing who we are
Or why we are here
Or where to go when we’re gone.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
BIG DREAMS
Give up your heart
But not your dreams ,
You might think you’re big
But your dreams are bigger.
People who match you
Are special, but people
Who match your dreams
Are the most valuable.
You might think your dreams
Exist to fulfill you,
But it is you who exists
To make your dreams come true.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
RAY
The day is a Ray of light
The night is the light of the heart
The heart is the start of the journey
The journey is returning home
Home is where the day is a ray of light
And the night is the light of the heart
Because it is full of awakening dreams
And the heart is the start of the journey
And the journey is returning home
And home is where your heart redeems
And the day is a ray of light.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
A BLUE SHIRT
A blue shirt is just a shirt
The red heart beneath it will still hurt
Don’t check what’s under the skirt
Just skirt the pothole on the ground
As you approach what you’ve found
If you want to turn your life around.
A black hat is just a hat
Underneath it is a mind that
Sees every colour sometimes
And sometimes black and white
With eyes closed and shining bright.
Never stop at the cover of tan,
Look through them and see the human.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
