ODE TO THE FLOWER

17/01/201708/03/2021 ~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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.

THE MOON IS IT

16/01/201705/08/2020 ~ Che ~ 2 Comments

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.

THOUGHTS WE MET

09/01/201705/08/2020 ~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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)

ATOP CASTLERIGG

02/01/201729/07/2020 ~ Che ~ 3 Comments

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)

OLD YEAR BECOMES MEMORY

01/01/201729/07/2020 ~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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.

CLOSURE

31/12/201629/07/2020 ~ Che ~ 5 Comments

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.

AS YOU AGE

20/12/201629/07/2020 ~ Che ~ 2 Comments

From one to the next bondage
One to the next stage of life
Strife follows on strife
As you age.

If joy was a seed
I hope you planted it
If life requested a good deed
I hope you granted it –

’Cause that’s all you’ll have
When you cross the grave.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

image: wilhei/pixabay

COMING BACK

19/12/201629/07/2020 ~ Che ~ Leave a comment

image by Pexels

You reap what you sow
And pay back what you owe –
Just a little rhyme to remember
When you harvest the crops in September.

Never burn the bridge you’re travelling on
For it alone will lead you back to where you begun –
Just a little thought to ponder on
Wanderer, before you wake up and wander on.

Givers never lack
Takers never give back
Because they forever lack –
The newest face has on old old back
The global highway was once a little dirt track.

We reap what we sow
And pay back what we owe –
Just a little rhyme to remember
Brother, when you await the new year in December.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

(Image courtesy Pexels/Pixabay)

NATURE SHAPES AND NATURE FORMS

07/12/201629/07/2020 ~ Che ~ 3 Comments

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.

NIGER DELTA

08/11/201629/07/2020 ~ Che ~ Leave a comment

There used to be a village quiet
One of many of the same childlike face
Faces of native fisherfolk
Of contentment in nature’s ancient cradle

A village on the river
Somewhere in the labyrinth of the Niger Delta
The songs they sang on their swaying boats
Put to sleep the fish in their nets’ embrace

Sweet was the voice of the water
Clear, her heart, clear, her mind
But, treacherous, the land bore a secret treasure
Deep within her precious heart

And they came, they came, thirsty
For the dark oily secret in her laps
And they drill, they drill, deeply, and spill
And until today they’re coming still

The village, it is no more
The river’s song is choked slowly to death
Crude and dark and slimy and viscous
The oil has smeared the water and defiled the land

But, unquenched, the flames of caustic lust
Still they burn, still they yearn
The bright acid fires that char our skin
Burn our throats too and poison deep our thoughts

Our colourful birds are burned into memory
Our fish, our beasts will be future-fossilized
There was a tree, it was the last of its kind
May nature preserve our footprints still formed

And the villagers now are refugees at home
Seeking other shores and other huts
Seeking rivers where they can again sing their songs
As they outcast their ancestral nets

And in their hearts they never forget
That once upon a not-so-distant time
They had a land, they had a river, that hid
A precious dark secret beneath its soft breast.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.