REBIRTH OF HAPPINESS

I found Happiness in my heart. It came out of the Blues, I don’t know where from, just at that moment and in that phase when I was experiencing the deepest betrayal and the most excruciating pain. I embraced the pain and decided to let it carry out its mission within me. I only made one promise to myself, I would not let it kill me.

One morning, when I was at my lowest, I called out to Happiness and begged it to come to me, swore to myself that I would find it. I knew it heard me, I felt it in the message it sent to me, like a vibration that touched my heart and awakened Hope. But the pain stayed, it did not go away immediately. Instead, it intensified and seemed to make one last grand grab at my Soul and my inner life, to kill me inwardly at last and for good.

I struggled, stumbled, but kept on walking, full of pain. And then, just as suddenly as this sentence follows on the last one, out of the Blues, in the middle of work and mundane daily chores, just when I was not looking or paying attention… Happiness suddenly showed up in my heart, like a Hero, like Sunrise, like a gift from God, like a warrior of Light.

Happiness is a strange thing, it lifts you high on wings of lightness, fills your heart with buoyancy, and makes you… Happy.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

LOVE IS THE LIGHT OF THE HEART

Love is a light
It illumines the heart
And makes it bright

And it is light
Like a winged cart
Rising to the height

Love is a chart
It always goes right
Right from the start

Love is the highest art
Love is the deepest light
Of which Happiness is a part.

Love is the light of the heart
Love is the happiness of the heart
Love is the strength of the heart.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DON’T RUN

I don’t run from the pain. I hold it inside until it hurts no more. That’s how I deal with it. Time is irrelevant, because time stands still. Only experiencing, internalisation, transformation and growth are important. And once those have taken place, the aching melts, the pain stops hurting, drops off and goes away – but not before giving me all its energy and all its wisdom; and awakening in me the capacity to take in bigger worlds tomorrow, and the Newness to love again another day. But above all, it reboots my spirit and re-ignites in me the Childlikeness to one day trust again with a healed heart. But with more circumspection and attention to detail next time.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

A PART OF YOU

Sometimes a part of you
Can live outside of you
And run away from you
And refuse to come back to you
And will ignore you
And will not recognise you
And will reject you
And will hurt you
And will avoid you

Because the reason why
It is living outside of you
Is in order to find itself
And fully become itself
Through struggle, experiencing and reflection
Uninfluenced by you
In order to one day be able
To complement you
And be complemented by you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ONE LOVE

You can only love one person, you can never love two people or even more. True love. In order to love another person, you have to first change and become a different person. But the person who loved that first person can never ever love another person. Once your heart has bonded, it can never ever unbond again, until it dies and becomes born again as a new heart.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

IT’S A HUMAN HEART

It’s winter
You’ll have warmer days
And you’ll have colder days
But they’ll all be cold.

It’s a human heart
You’ll have clearer days
And you’ll have uncertain moments
But still, be bold.

It’s an Earth life
You came to cry
And you came to laugh
And maybe grow old.

The people you love the most
Will cause you the most pain
And yet they’re the only ones
Your heart will want to hold.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE VAST DISTANCE

The deepest form of intimacy
is the sharing of truth.
Sex is not the highest form of intimacy -
Honesty is. No sleuth
can penetrate a false heart of lies.
No compass can navigate
the vast distance opened up by lies
that keeps hearts separate.

This distance cannot be closed by vicinity -
This distance can only be closed by veracity.


Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THROUGH HONESTY

Don’t be ashamed
Pour it all out
The heart is tamed
and freed from doubt
by the bravery of honesty.

Let those that hurt you
continue to mock you
It still cannot stop you
from healing through honesty
and growing through adversity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

PARTS OF STORIES

The person you think is in your story is also in someone else’s story. Never think a person is exclusively yours, even if they tell you so. It only depends on the form and context, on the depth and scope, and on the intensity and exact nature, of their role in your story and their roles in other people’s stories as well. Just like you are in many people’s stories, so is even the person closest to you maybe even closer still to someone else in that other person’s story. People are interconnected in ways nobody can fathom.

And you can only see your story, but lack complete access into the world of the other person’s story. You only know the character a person plays in your story, but you would be surprised if you ever saw the character that same person plays in another person’s story. Never will you know all the parts of a story, only some – if you are lucky, maybe the relevant ones. Never will you know all the people in a person’s story. And never ever will you know all the stories in which a person features – not even the person closest and dearest to you. Just like only God knows all the stories that you too are a part of.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

MAY YOU

May you grow
Like the flowers you love so much

May you sow
Seeds of fruits that nourish as such

May you glow
Under the purity of a true lover’s touch

May you know
Honesty to which you can safely clutch.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river