The Christmas holiday season
is like a dream
In January you wake up and
try to retain
as much of the dream as possible
within your heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Of Seasons And Times
HARMATTAN APPROACHING
A year has passed
I hear the gasping of another young harmattan
Hanging in the air.
A growing quietness
Encompassing every pain
No rain.
Distance becomes a memory
The past becomes a story
To be told and relished
Retold embellished
With detachment.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ROW YOUR BOAT
Do you see
Those two boats
On the river?
Two brothers
Will row, side by side
Into the sunset.
One will dock
On the golden banks
While the other
Will row on
And they will wave
Goodbye to each other.
This is the way
Of the world
Of love and loss
Of meeting and parting
Of friendship and memory
Of life and death.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Picture:
My brother Kwame and I
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1995
A few weeks later, he passed on in a car accident.
This was our last picture together.
DROP AWAY
A few birds still twitter
Even when the woods are cold
And when a gentle wind blows
And the autumn leaves russle
Hush hush
Around my ears
Then my years drop away again
Back to the beginning
And rush ahead once more to the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MIRACLES
Stories.
Like the one about the sad horse
Who came upon a silver lake
And assuaged her thirst.
Tomorrow she will wake up
To suddenly find that
She has begun to sprout wings…
Yet she will not turn into an eagle
But will remain a horse
Even after her wings have matured
Because sometimes
Horses are permitted to own their own wings
If they will fly up to there
As hoped
And not just fly down to there
As feared…
I believe
In horses with wings…
In fairies that, unobserved, observe us…
In animals than can read the thoughts of humans…
In babies that knew their own names
Even before they were born…
In love that does not die
Stories.
Like the one about
Two children who climbed
An old tree
And, when they came down,
Had already become adults again.
Tomorrow they will
Become children for a second time
The children they were
First meant to be
Stories. Stories. Stories.
I believe in miracles
I believe I can fly
I believe in you, Baby
Love is a miracle of life
Stories.
Like the Oracle
That predicted its own demise
But did not live
To see whether its prediction came true or not…
Stories.
Like the three sisters
Who did not know they were sisters
Until after they had all fallen in love
With the same man…
Stories. Stories.
Like the creation of the world
The adventures of the roving stars
The mysteries in the bowels of the earth –
Like the tired old widow who
Came upon a wishing-well and
After gratefully satiating her thirst
Flipped a coin
And wished the wishing-well well..
Stories.
Like the refugee
Who asked for just a little water and bread
And got it not
Yet could not figure out how to hate…
Stories.
Mysteries.
Oracles.
Miracles.
Everybody
Has a history
But some histories
Are outside everybody
If you were to behold a miracle
Now
Would you recognise it as one?
Probably not.
Miracles
Follow me
From life to life
Place to place
Face to face
There is a Green Hill
Far far away in unsullied fields
Where there be no Death
Once upon a time
Love
There is a miracle called love.
Amen.
Thirty days to Christmas
And here I am
Writing poems
And thinking just of you, my dear.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
TOMORROW
Wait a day longer, Tomorrow,
If you can – for Today is sweet as comfort
Yet, no, blue shadow, you carry me forward
A lotus dream on a tide older than Ganges
And here I am again, on the cusp of dawn
Seeking a new song of morning.
When did I sow all these seeds ripening out of me?
And then Today whispers in repetitious verdure
Every new day you live emerged from your heart.
The beauty of pleasure and the beauty of pain
Is that they have to fight for you tomorrow again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOUR OWN NOVEMBER
Those trees
Changing leaves
Changing their minds
Turning times
Redressing time
But there’s an hour when
Fear leaves
Turned red
Fall yellow, weak, finished, all said and dead.
Then you change your mind too
After the thoughts are fallen
Your fearlessness stands naked hard in the bolding cold
Do you fear your own freedom, your own self-dependence?
Are you afraid of your own courage?
November strips the brave of their cowardice
And the cowardly of their bravery.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
BREATHE AGAIN
Wait for the knocking of the carpenter
For it won’t be long
Lovingly building that cradle, soft of hay
It will be rocked by a virgin’s song
But a prouder man, a truer man
Will watch over the smile of a radiant star
– Then, lonely earth spirit, light up your heart
For Christmas is no longer far.
And if you think deeper, you will realise
He did not come to die, but to open up our eyes
To Life, to love, to a new reason to strive.
Breathe again, wilted human flowers – and rise…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
YOUTH
Happiness was close
Always close
A thought away
A recognition away
But that was always too far
For a young mind blinded
By too many choices
Too many voices.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AUTUMN WAKE
Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A piece of you
For the season of ripening
Is upon your feet.
All your old sins, and new too
All your old fears are new too
Even your old hopes will become new
Strengths, thoughts and dreams
Have rested long enough, it seems
Have rested long enough, it seems
Yield
Like the fields
Do yield
A multitude of fruits and roots
And all were offshoots
Of just one seed
So, yield to your need
And be the seed
And the fruit
And be the answer today
To the question you asked yesterday
Become one with your longing.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 