RELATIONSHIP PURPOSE

If you don’t make each other happy,
then what’s the point in being together?
To lift each other up when you’re feeling crappy,
And be there for one another in every weather.

And forgive each other when you make mistakes
And learn from your actions, mistakes and reactions
And make the effort to grow, no matter what it takes,
Learning to understand yourselves and your actions

Love is a house and a road,
Is a journey and a destination,
Is a relief and a load,
Is intensity and elation.
Love is your heart talking loud and clear,
Telling you this is who I want near and dear,
Telling you, Have no fear for I have no fear,
Anywhere we set off to, together, we will get there.

And when you laugh together
And when you grow together
You will one day thank the Almighty Father
For bringing you together.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

FOCUS ON THE ESSENTIAL

It‘s okay to lose people as long as
You don’t lose yourself in the process
No matter how tempting.

It’s okay to gain people as long as
You also gain yourself in the process
Inspite of how tempting
it is
to push aside your spiritual development
in order to chase after someone
who has gone outside
or to adjust to and enjoy someone
who has come inside.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

Free yourself of the fear of losing her
Free yourself of the thought of having
Or not having her
That’s not for you to control or decide
Only God has that Power
The only power you have is the power of love
All you can do is to love her
Love is life and Love is light
If you have love in your heart for her
Then just love her
And if you have no way of directly giving
Or showing that love to her
Then just let the love flow through you
And flow out of you
And flow out into the universe…

Your love will find its way to her
In the workings of the universe
One way or another.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains and
Poems from the inner river

THE HURTING LOVE

The Love of God
Will hurt you -
Make no mistake about that -
In order to cure you.

Are you ready to grow?
To reap what you sow?
To be polished until you glow?
To go with the flow
Wherever God’s wind may blow?

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE IS MY LIGHT

Love is my light
If I cannot love
I don’t feel right

Love leads me Above
Because it makes me light
Like a dove.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

SHAME

Don’t be ashamed
Of your feeling of shame
For your ability to feel ashamed
Protects you from coming to shame.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

ON THE STREET

There are people who live on the street
The street’s human face and heartbeat
By rain and sun, by snow and by sleet
These are those people that we meet
Shuffling past and huddling by our feet
Who we glance barely by and rarely greet
Kindness, it seems, is truly a mean feat.

Arw we afraid to share in their defeat?
Is life a race in which we all compete?
Does shame force the broken to retreat?
Do losers get an opportunity to repeat?
People at their lowest don’t need our conceit.
A part of ourselves lives on the street
Looking for dignity, a roof and something to eat.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

LOVE IS THE LIGHT OF THE HEART

Love is a light
It illumines the heart
And makes it bright

And it is light
Like a winged cart
Rising to the height

Love is a chart
It always goes right
Right from the start

Love is the highest art
Love is the deepest light
Of which Happiness is a part.

Love is the light of the heart
Love is the happiness of the heart
Love is the strength of the heart.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TRUST IS

Trust is a thread
Is an earthenware pot
Is a glass cup
Do not break it.

Sow with it a garment of protection
Cook in it a meal of spiritual nutrition
Drink from it the water of eternal affection
And never break it.

It is hard to remake it.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WE EXPECT MORE FROM SEX

We expect more from sex than it can give. And when it fails to give it, we take more and more and more of it, demanding with even more intensity and urgency from it that which it is unable to give. Unable to give because, no matter how deep and intimate it is, in the end it’s still just sex. It can never fulfil your soul. And the real you, the human spirit, is in the soul. There is a depth of unhappiness that it cannot fill, a height of joy it cannot reach. There is a fineness and exactness of intimate connection which sex can only crudely attempt to approximate without being able to fill the gaps.

The gaps that sincerity can fill; the gaps that honesty can bridge; the gaps that integrity can close; the gaps that trust can repair; the gaps that homogeneity can make disappear; the gaps that reliability can heal; the gaps that a shared Ideal and a common goal can plug; the gaps that working together can eliminate; the gaps that intimate truthful conversations can undo; the gaps that a harmonisation of thinking and intuiting can cure. All the gaps that the best sex in the world cannot fill. No matter how often and creatively we try to find the fulfilment therein.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains