Deeper
Than the sleeper
Dreaming can go
Deeper
Than the weeper
Hurting can flow
Deeper
Than the reaper
Planting can sow
Deeper still and deeper yet
Can the quiet heart knowing can go
And return and never forget.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Learn to bear pain
Like the clouds bear rain
Like the earth bears grain
Like the rails bear each train.
Learn to bear pain
The loss will be your gain
When a new you emerges again.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Some people you say goodbye to
Like a street sign or a signpost
Like a palm frond waving to and fro
Like a billboard with the picture of a ghost
Like a permanent painting on the wall
Like a window frozen shut in time
Like a silenced silent echoless evening call
Like a poem’s closing rhyme.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
It is better to know a person’s character than to know the person’s history. You might think that you will not know the character fully if you don’t know the history, and there might be some truth to that. However the history might obscure and distort your assumption on the present character and give you a wrong impression and make you miss the person right in front of you now. You come to understand the character by observing and experiencing the person in front of you now. That’s the most important thing. Every other information about the past that you get should be put in context with the present.
People say if you don’t know where a person is coming from you won’t understand the person. But it works both ways. For me, the present is more important. If I don’t experience, analyse, intuitively perceive and understand a person as they are now, I won’t know where they are coming from even if they tell me. Because information is not knowledge. Only experiencing and reflection, leading to recognition, is true knowledge of a person.
Knowing what I did in the past does not tell you who I am. At all. Believe me. Yes, it gives you clues, but some choices I make today will still baffle you. Because I have a free will. To really know who I am today, you have to experience and read me TODAY. Then you will also understand my past and perceive what my future might be.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
Life’s poetry is kindness.
Art, poetry, music or philosophy
Without humanity is blindness.
For what is ability without sympathy?
No matter how great it’s climb is,
It is still empty
As long as it is lacking in kindness.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
For some things are soft
And some things are hard
Some things you leave exposed
Some things you guard
Sometimes progress
Means to take a step backward
To find the beginning again
And now go properly forward.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Pillows
Made of sorrows
That soften our tomorrows
Today
Feel the pain today
Rest your heart on it, my dear…
One day it will go away
And tomorrow will be here.
Repeat: cry, laugh, cry, play.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
Spontaneous swims
The rain fall wins
Desire and disinterest are twins
Sometimes you look and say nothing
Sometimes you say something
And sometimes you try everything.
Whims. Oh, these whims.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
In a world of AI, sometimes take the time to write down your own thoughts by yourself, so you don’t forget who you are.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains
Many things are granted just one moment
Take it or leave it
If you miss it
You can never again retrieve it.
Sometimes
The moment is very short
A moment, a second, a minute, an hour,
Believe it or not. Did you believe
And deliver
Or did you abort?
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
