A leaf…
Trembling in
The wind –
I
Through life move
With half-open eyes
That fail to see the other
Side…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
English
WALK YOUR OWN PATHS
Don’t follow
When the road is hollow
Which they ply –
In your heart is sky.
The answer will sound in your heart
Long after your mother and I depart
Run your immortal run
A time once upon,
You my daughter and you my son.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
REMEMBER THE SUN, LOOK UP –
ONCE UPON a time, there was a bird.
It flew and flew for a long time, over great distances, over lakes, mountains and forests, over deserts, countries and valleys, over vast oceans and across mighty fields of thought.
One day, as it was flying over such a field of thought, it looked down and saw a little girl playing in the red-brown soil of Owerri, a small town in south-eastern Nigeria. Dressed in a short, tie-dyed west African boubou and skipping merrily on bare feet behind her father’s house, the little girl threw thoughts up into the air, bright blue and yellow thoughts, the way other children throw up ribbons and balls. And when the thoughts went into the air, they would take wing and fly high into the sky, so high up that not even the bird could see the height into which they soared.
One by one they would then, after a long while, reappear in the visible firmament as they began their downward flight to the girl. Upon their descent the thoughts were bigger, brighter, more beautiful, and they all bore a crown on their heads. This the bird could see.
By the time the thoughts returned to the girl, her father’s house had washed away and she had grown into a woman, a young and beautiful woman with a silent sorrow on her face, a deep question in her eyes, a lovely, innocent yet knowing smile upon her lips. For in the period in which her thoughts had flown to heaven, many men and women had loved and left her. Some had loved her too little and some had loved her too much. But none had loved her enough. Now she stood there with the universal question in her heart; the search for her destiny.
A song. Beautiful was the song that came out of the bird, descended along with the woman’s returning thoughts. One by one, her thoughts alighted on her breast, folded their wings around her like in an embrace and dissolved into her. As each thought disappeaed back into her, her eyes became brighter, the sadness upon her ebony features faded away, little by little, the question gradually disappeared, and she gradually grew up… until the last thought had reunited itself with her, and she stood there, tall, pretty, mature, clear.
Then did she hear the song… the song of the bird… it pierced her heart like a bird’s beak penetrating into the heart of a wild honey flower and told her wild and gentle stories of things forgotten and remembered. Like the sunflower her heart exploded open and she looked up…
And she saw the sun!
And while she revelled in the sight of the sun, for since attaining adulthood she had not noticed the sun anymore, the bird flapped it’s wings again and flew on, flew away. By the time the woman, filled with the sun, looked around in the sky for the source of the lovely song that made her look up in the first place and awakened her to the sun…, the bird was long gone.
Once upon a time, there was a bird… on and on it flew, over fields of thought and gentle growth. Simple is her song:
Remember the sun, look up –
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
From my book of inspirational short stories and anecdotes:
THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING MORE
ROW YOUR BOAT
Do you see
Those two boats
On the river?
Two brothers
Will row, side by side
Into the sunset.
One will dock
On the golden banks
While the other
Will row on
And they will wave
Goodbye to each other.
This is the way
Of the world
Of love and loss
Of meeting and parting
Of friendship and memory
Of life and death.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Picture:
My brother Kwame and I
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1995
A few weeks later, he passed on in a car accident.
This was our last picture together.
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How many go ahead
Who yet remember to erect road signs?
How many who break bread
Remember to leave a trail of crumbs behind?
I did not when I was ahead
But realised it not until I too fell behind.
Your hole yeast bread
Won’t rise to your comfort in lonely times.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AT NIGHT…
Truth undresses
Conscience pricks
Contemplation caresses
What conversation can’t fix.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE MIDNIGHT CANDLE
Spirit flame in the world of it-doesn’t-matter
Radiant star never-the-less in the darkness
Night is a blessing for lost dreamers
It is the world-wanderer’s permanent address
Night makes the seeing blind
And the insight sharp as blade
The fire within will warm the cold
Feet of dew
Young mind, never mind
The world well and shiny made
It is for the old
You were born to bring the new.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
IMAGINATION
They were not decorations on our wall
We were shadows on theirs
Flickering like candle thoughts
Gathering, falling and dispersing
Like broods of clouds
When we stand across the divide
Looking at each other, it’s hard to tell
Who is real
And who is the figment of whose imagination.
Writer, did you write your book
Or did your book write you?
Artist, did you paint that look
In the eye of the portrait watching you
Or are you just a thought in its mind?
If you look, sometimes you will find
That the musician is the instrument
And the song is the conductor of his movement.
And when an architect erects a building
He is only doing so to house therein his restless feelings.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NATURE SHAPES AND NATURE FORMS
Nature shapes and nature forms
Humans, mountains, seasons, worms
Nature cools and nature warms
Hearts and loves, volcanoes and storms
But stretch out your hand to touch nature
And all you’ll touch are her dorms and norms
For nature herself is hidden from capture
And all we see are her shapes and forms.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MADIBA
Kindness was his rod
With it he parted the red sea
Kindness was his road
Wide enough for all of humanity
Step forth, step forth, step forth
West, East, South, North.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 