Of Family Affairs

GREEN VEGETABLES

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

I remember watching
When I was a little boy
Hamlet
In my father’s bedroom
By my father’s side

He was munching on Green Vegetables
And I was observing
Sometimes him
And sometimes the television…

And he said:
This is the mystery.
You know… You see…
Why didn’t he do it at that moment?
Or
If he knew that he could not do it
Why did he try to begin at all
To obey his father’s call to action??

He shook his head
And munched away coolly
Upon his Green Vegetables…

And I was trying to figure out
If he was asking me a question
Or giving me an answer…

(for Daddy)

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE SUBTLE GIFT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Most things become
smaller
Receeding into
Distance.

Yet, as memories of you
Race into fargone bowels of time
Looking back all I see
You towering ever bigger in my mind –

How can this be?
Newton, Einstein and Hawkings may try
But never can explain this –
It transcends intellect.

Time, the subtle thief, with time
Has become the subtle teacher
The subtle giver
The subtle gift.

(for Kwame Chukwumerije)

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

 

KNIGHT’S TRAP

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

image blitzmaerker/pixabay

I fell into the knight’s trap
Of trying to protect my mother
From my father

Nay
Of seeing things from her point of view
And refusing to look at them from his
Forgetting that he and I are the same –

A feathered castle is the strongest prison –

When I became a man too
Then I knew
That wittingly or unwittingly
She had simply divided father and son
For decades of lifetimes
And
Brought me together with my father
In my heart
Today.

A knight should free the maiden –
But then
Thereafter
He should remember
To free himself too
From the maiden
And ride back home
To his own castle.

Never stay.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

 

image: blitzmaerker/pixabay

REGRET AND HOPE

~ Che ~ 9 Comments

I sat under a tree
Waiting for me
To come back to me

And while I was there
Two friends came to share
With me their hope and fear

A couple healthy and young
Who for long did long
To right a secret wrong

Early in their union
Confused they had given
A baby away for adoption.

And now though they try
And love and long and cry
The womb stays barren and dry

They’ve traced now doggedly
And found the family
Where their child grows happily

Today from afar
They saw them pass in a car
Saw how happy they are

Then sadly, quietly
They walked to the tree
Where I sat waiting for me.

And so did we three
Reflect thoughtfully
On history and destiny

And then we took heart
Upped and did depart
With courage and hope in our hearts.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AS IF ALREADY WE KNEW

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

I remember you
Almost everyday.
Do thoughts forget
Their creators? Heart
And common sense agree
In me that they never could.
I remember you daily.

Our childhood and youth
Made my heart what
It is today. And though
You’re gone who knows
Where in the Beyond,
Still my memories of you,
Brother, know no boundaries.

How many times did
We watch Joe Panther?
Little did we know that
We were watching our future.
For, like Tiger died and left Joe,
One of us would go
And the other would lonely stay.

And I remember how quietly
We sat, together, trying
To hold back and conceal
Our tears that first time
We watched La Bamba –
As if already then we knew
How it would one day feel.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FARSIGHTEDNESS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There is a Nigerian saying
What a child cannot see from a treetop
An adult can see from the ground
They usually say it with a gentle smile

The boy that I was, the child now in me
Was nourished by my mother’s love
While the man I was becoming, who now I am
Was nurtured by my father’s severity

So when they say true love is severity
And severity is sometimes the truest of love
I guess I know now, in retrospect,
What they mean to say between the lines

It is impossible to see both sides –
Day and Night – simultaneously
You have to experience them one by one
And then piece it together in your mind.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.