SERVICE

In the morning when the sun arises
A light shall also dawn within you,
A clarity that intrinsically recognises
What on Earth you are supposed to do -

To awaken to service to the good,
For kindness, honesty, courage and humility
Are life’s deeper nourishment and food
And the template of humanity.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

YOU KNOW

Go at your own pace
Let no one hurry you
Your life has deeper value
Than just to be in a race.

Frame your own narrative
Own your own story
Share your own memory
Everybody’s is selective.

Only you know
Deep within your soul
Your heart’s true goal
You alone know.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DENIED

If you died
Right now
Ask yourself
What have you lied
To yourself
About.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

A NEW BEGINNING

A beautiful day,
My heart opens in joy and gratitude
And begins to pray:
Thank You, Lord, for healing, for fortitude,
For blessing my way
With true friends and a heart of quietude,
For sending Your Ray
Of warmth into the depth of my solitude.

Although I lost my woman
I gained new friends and a reopened heart.
With pain grows acumen;
Life is a journey, Your Word is the Chart.
It’s hard to be a true man
But every new day is a good day to start.
Daily You make me human,
moulding through experiences my innermost part.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

PARALLEL UNIVERSES

When a person just doesn’t know how to tell you the truth, they simply stick to the lie. From start to finish. Even if they want to tell you the truth, they don’t know how to, they don’t know where to start because the truth runs on a completely different storyline and separate lifestyle, opposite reality and parallel universe. It will hurt you deeply and completely overturn your view of life and of them. Or so the person thinks. But if only they would try you, to see a new person emerge and a new powerful authentic relationship form.

Starting with a lie is always a slippery slope, a rollercoaster ride. It is nervousness and heart palpitations from start to finish. It can be exciting and exhilarating, until it becomes human and personal. Then it becomes a chore, a nightmare, a heavy load, and a puzzling sphinx, a difficult riddle to solve. Tell the truth and shatter the other person’s reality? Or maintain the lie and allow it to eat you inside and gnaw at the other person’s gut instincts, and prevent both of you from ever forming a true bond? And yet, only the truth liberates.

There will be a humanity one day of honest human spirits who live, share and relate in the light of truth always and in all things. Deeply and simply. Inside and out. Individually and as a society. The most fundamental truth we owe ourselves as human beings is the truth of how we really are as a person. This is the basis of all relationships and of society and of a possibility to one day have a reflection of Paradise on Earth. A home away from Home.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

MARCH TOWARDS APRIL

So many things ending in my life this month, as March ends. And so many things starting. Looking forward to April. Is my heart big enough to contain and bear it all? Yes, my heart is always big enough. And when it isn’t, it simply grows some more, grows again.

Aries, as ever, you end the old and bring the new. For me, to me, in me.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

LEARNING

Take your time to know.
Find your space to grow.
Time and space are seeds you sow
To reap maturity tomorrow.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SLEEP WALKER

Every night when I sleep and wake up in the morning , I jump large distances. I don’t know where I go when I’m sleeping, but I never wake up where I fell asleep. The person who sleeps at night, dies, and a new person wakes up in the morning. So, if you were in my heart before I died in the night, and you are still or again in my heart when I wake up, as a new person, in the morning, then know that I truly love you, for you are anchored at a depth within me that is deeper than all the changes. But the day I wake up and check inside my heart and you are no more there, then know that a fundamental change has taken place within me. The person who exists now does not know or recognise you and does not love you anymore.

Friends, waste not the night. Pray before you fall asleep, and let your spirit walk, through its interactions and reflections, to its next station of development; yea, and let your spirit jump at night to its new conclusions. The night is not meant for sleeping. The night is meant for weeping, for keeping pace with your spiritual development, for healing, for recharging your solar plexus, and for leaping to new recognitions. Only the mind sleeps off at night, when it has grown tired of thinking. But the spirt, the spirit is awake. So, something continues to happen at the back of your mind. And what your spirit learns while your body is asleep, it will attempt to reveal to your intellect, your day-conscious mind, in the morning when you wake up again. But we don’t always understand, and we don’t always remember.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

YOU DON’T BELONG

You can only close your eyes for so long,
Your inner voice knows when something is wrong;
However hard you try to feel among,
You won’t be accepted where you don’t belong.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SOMEONE

You will hurt somebody
And somebody will hurt you
You will heal somebody
And somebody will heal you
You will help somebody
And somebody will help you
You will hinder somebody
And somebody will hinder you.

For every vice
And for every virtue
There’s someone to take it
And someone to give it to you.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river