Of Seasons And Times

TOMORROW

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

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

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

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

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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

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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

~ Che ~ 1 Comment

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.

LOVING BOTH

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Just like on quiet stealthy
Hesitant feet
Autumn circles and stalks
Summer’s heat
My thoughts reminisce
My heart’s sweet defeat
My dreams learn to become
Silent and discrete

’Twas never love
That broke a heart
Love never was spurned
That understood the art
Of stoking desire
By slaking its thirst
And stoking desire
By letting it thirst

And knowing the difference
Between the two
Is loving Summer
And Autumn too.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SING OF GREEN

~ Che ~ 2 Comments

Sing of green
For soon it’ll be gone to dust
A memory of autumn’s ancestor
Saying I used to know a lass
And her name was Summer

Yet look underneath her smile
Yes I mean her brightest smile
Where a shadow sweet as secret sorrow
Suckled on her honey lips
And read my thoughts of you

Then sing with me, sing of green
From the caverns of throat
Dry hoarse tears, from depths of wrong
And right, let the hordes of your
Passion shout with song!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FAINTHEARTEDNESS

~ Che ~ 12 Comments

There is a time, a moment
To say yes –
You feel it, you know it, you just
Have to say it

Yet you drown it in conversation
Puncture it with rhetoric
Hang a cloud of Why over it
Betray it with a question mark, and then fall silent

There is a time, a moment to
Say yes – only the brave
Will grasp it. The fainthearted
Will run away into a familiar point of view

Every meeting is a thing of beauty
Everything that confuses you and
Throws you off-balance is a gift from life
Knocking on the door of a greater you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

TRUE COLOURS

~ Che ~ 5 Comments

Every tree eventually
Bears its fruit
Look not for reason
Wait just for its season

Long is the wait when
Deep is the root
You don’t know your friend
Until the end.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

DAWN

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I chanced to look near dawn
Out of my sorrow
And indigo was the wall
Outside my window

Surprised, I looked away
From night, my widow
Then stole another glance again
At my tomorrow

Tomorrow was in mute concert
Briefly I am my cello
Confused at my own melody
My poem, my strange bedfellow

But night is sheared now finally
Soft day echoes my hello
And as I rise, my waking thought
Sinks away into my pillow.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.