A beautiful green palm-tree
Not the dark green but the bright yellow-green
That gleams in the day-light sheen
Against the azure-blue canvass of heaven, sky and a dream
An awaking dream; am I awake or do I dream?
I could almost be another green palm-tree.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
All I can do
Is just sing my songs
Between currents of dawn
I am a tree
The Iroko said to the ground
I cannot be grass too
Nor wind that comes and goes
And sings with birds and scents
And distant tales.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too,
When you’re near
All is fair
As virtue
When you’re gone
Or I the bridge
Have again undone,
Built a ridge,
I forget you,
Call you untrue
And intrigue…
But deep within
My human heart,
Beneath the skin,
Another part
Still remembers
In the fire’s embers
Our start.
There’s more in nature
Than what we see
Behind your second nature
Search quietly
There’ll you’ll find
Behind your mind
Your first nature…
The one that feels
The beings unseen
The one that heals
In the worlds between
Every night
Weeps for the Light
Unseen.
I feel you close
All those of you
Who love the rose
Within you too –
I know you’re near
I almost hear
And feel you…
A bond of love
Unbreakable
Linked to the Dove
A sacred table –
All those who know
Don’t let it show…
The world calls it a Fable.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
A little fairy, a lonely elf
All by herself
Hiding in the fields of blue
Quietly watching you
A little baby in your arms
Falls for her charms
Smiles at her and says to her:
Friend, do you live here?
The years will fly past like a sun
Running from the dawn
The child becomes an adult too
Could be me or you
Will saunter past these fields some day,
Eyes fixed on the way
Sees not the elf, hears not her whisper:
You I remember.
Then falls in love, a child is born
That for which we yearn
The adult wonders what it’s saying
And with whom it’s playing
Sees not that beings have blessed their home
Where unseen they roam
For oft a fairy close by whiles
When a baby smiles.
We take our walks, babies in arm
Marvel at their charm
We watch them smile at lonesome grass –
Energy or mass?
Something arrests their attention
Seen by them alone
An elf informs them wistfully:
You too will forget me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Human beings can be very unjust
Because some are mean and some are blind
But she teaches me to ever trust
In the victory of love true and kind
She flows with the rhythm silently
And subtly sets the tone
She fulfils something for everybody
Until each feels she is their own
She flows, stands, dances, hovers
She softens hunters and strengthens gatherers
She makes Knights of all her lovers
And Kings out of gardeners
She defeats deserts of both soil and heart
She is an oasis all on her own
She awakens new worlds, reawakens that part
Of me that has turned into stone.
Be ever on the look-out for her
Like a watchman from his tower –
Protest her when you see her; thus will you know her:
She who flows is the flower
She opens her heart for all to drink
Who bear the natural thirst,
She expresses what all lovers think
Because she was the first
An irresistible smile is her crown
Radiating unselfishly,
She lifts my spirits when I am down
She gives unceasingly
She arrests with her quiet dignity
She‘s humbly proud, yet vulnerable
She is the salvation of the concept of purity,
Accessible but unsoilable
She is Natural, normal, ordinary
A caring, healing gem
She flows with her lovers’ and guardians’ story
Encourages, comforts, ennobles them
She awakens tears and gentle smiles
Just by being there;
Beautiful above all transient styles,
A beauty always and fair
Her lovely whiff, caught from afar
Releaser of the deepest sighs
She is a mirror of heaven’s star
Lights up my soul and eyes
She’s nature’s victory over human art
Mightier than pen and sword
She speaks deeply to the human heart
Without saying a word
And has one distinct feminine feature:
In her grace lies her power.
She FLOWS with the currents of nature
That’s why she’s called the FLOWER…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I cherish the sight
I cherish the night
Moon-crowned… moon-found
The Poetry is so profound
That strikes the Deep
Out of its Sleep
When the fortnight is twice over turned
And the Full-Moon has returned.
I hear the lone wolf again
From the stillness of the deep and the pain
Howling from out of my Heart…
Howling from out of my Heart…
The moon…
The moon…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I won’t forget
Every thought I met
Blowing in the breeze
Resting beneath the trees
And mirrored on each lake
Asleep or awake
Before which we waited
And silently contemplated
Another wonderful day
Of this lovely holiday…
Thoughts that grow
Like flowers in the meadow
And time after time
Like a recurrent rhyme
Will yield new fruit
And like a Magic flute
Even as I age
Page after page
Will always light the light
Of Insight.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije. (Poems Inspired By The Lake District)
It must have been on Castlerigg
Amidst the ancient stones
My spirit suddenly grew big –
Did I sense my old bones?
I felt that here within this circle
I have married you before
What some might call insensible
Or, being kind, a lore…
Why do I feel what I feel?
Your eyes tell me it’s real…
If you agree with me, then nothing else matters
Sacred are family matters –
I still see Castlerigg
The heart of a mighty circle
Of mountainous hills wise and big
Like a prototype stone circle
Built by Substantiate Beings
That walked the earth
Long before Human Beings
First came to birth.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (Poems Inspired by the Lake District)
Suddenly the snow came
I had waited
And watched the mountain-tops
Snow-capped
All around was a struggling winter
Asserting itself clumsily
When the skies were not blue, it drizzled
The clouds passed away
Temperature refused to fall, stood straight –
I walked deep in thought
On the Mountain, I heard the Bells
Ever and again they met in one sound
A single song. I walked up
And drove away before dawn. It did not
Snow until the airbus was about
To leave the Gate. I watched it
And recalled in my memory
The feel of snow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They say a time will come
When upon this earth
Evolution will girdle its gains
Back again around its girth
Many a wondrous tree
That we cherish and deeply love
Will, year by year, with time
Evolving slow dissolve
Many a beloved animal
Continents, rivers, plateaux
Even man, the so-called crown
Yes, our body too will go
And one day, even she
Heaven’s gate and heaven’s door
The lovely lovely rose
On earth will be no more.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 