Der hauchdünne Schmerz abermals
Jedes Mal, so wie Grausilbernrauchschwaden
Ihr Gedanke vorbei streift
Ich habe den ganzen langen Sommer
Im Loch nach dem Keime umgegraben
Zu entfernen des Schmerzes Brennwurzel
Ungekrönt von Erfolg
Jetzt härtet Herbst den Boden
Bis zum Frühling wird’s noch härter werden
Unter Schnee und Eis und ungetaut
Wird überwintern abermals in mir
Ungelöscht, mein Sehnen nach ihr.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Take in little sips
My waterfall
My aching brown lips
Gently call
Did softly my love
Water your flower?
Then a Little is enough
… A gentle shower
So, now, slow it down
Time stands still
And the heights we crown
Will be gentler still
Come, cup your Hands –
The night rain
Fills and understands
Our gentlest pain
And when I flow away
Say to our offsprings
In your wild blood play
Love’s gentle wings.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Er träumte, er trank Feelichter
Aus einer Blumenschwelle
Übersprudelnd mit Lachschorle
Errötende Rosé–Dämmerhelle
Sehnflucht ergriff sein Herz
Es zuckte wie singende Schelle
Dann flog er fort wie Morgenröte
Erhellte jede grübelnde Stelle
Wo Traurigkeit ihn einst getröstet
Erweckte er eine leise Freudenwelle
Durch Vergabe geteilter Weintränen
Aus seiner neuen Sehnsucht Quelle.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Unusual is the hand
That can count backwards
The name of the original land
That birthed its ancestors forwards
Every many generations the slate is wiped clean
You think you are there where you always have been
But most every native is a fruit of some old migrant tree
That forgot its deep roots in some distant ancient century
And some disappeared Country.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
We are so strongly influenced
By the form of what we see
That we lose sight of a sense
Of what its true content could be
Who would ever guess
That in a cocoon sleeps a butterfly
Or that the greatest devil of all
Looks like an angel in the sky?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Ich saß ungesehen am Busbahnhof
Rostige Blätter starben in der Luft
Auf der letzten Reise zum Friedhof
Ich hätt sie trauriger eingestuft
Der letzte Bus ist wieder abgefahren
Letzter Kuß, letzter Wink, der Platz ist leer
Ein Schreck ist mir plötzlich eingefahren:
Was mache ich immer noch hier?
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
And this a wanderer said to me
The mountains will awaken mountains in you
And the rivers will make a more thoughtful
Traveller of you.
The seasons will change you as frequently
As they change – and your new selves
Will not remember the person
You used to be.
And when you come back home again,
Sadness, quietness and joy will overcome you
And everything you left on the road
Will be as a dream.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I carry with me only a pouch of hope
A flinch of salt for my daily bread
My shadows falter; my wings, they grope
For space, where seekers dread to tread
My sandals are poised to strike the sand
A grain of pain is universe
But when I prise open deep my hand
The lines of blessing write off any curse
In leaps and bounds my mountains guide me
When the moon is barking, my shadows hide me
Pauselessly, hard, intuitions ride me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Ada slipped open the sixth and final poem in the small collection –
YOUNG AGAIN –
Those were the words, that was the title.
“Were we ever young?”
“Did we ever age?”
Neither replied the other. Each had spoken for the other.
This last poem, for some reason, was italicised from first word to last. We shall be young one day again, younger than we ever were, young as ageless eternity. YOUNG AGAIN.
It becomes simple
Crosses threshold
Mortality into immortality
Denseness into quickness
Old into new, call it young
The good become older
Grow younger
Younger and younger and younger
The better you
Lighter and truer
Younger grow
Let us all grow young again
Fill the Earth with laughter
With truth, with youth –
Ngozi looked into Ada’s eyes and said:
“I want to see Tony again.”
There was a pause. But did a spell break somewhere quietly? Or were we never there?
“Do you have a telephone?” Ngozi pressed, trying to interpret Ada’s silence. It must mean something.
Suddenly Ada was taken aback.
A spell seemed indeed to abruptly lift itself off her and, in its place, her thinking cap, invisible on her head but visible in the sudden, guarded look in her eyes, treacherous windows, descended, full of fears and cleverness and innumerable bad memories, upon her. She was suddenly appalled at herself, and the last twenty minutes swiftly took on the aspect of a fairy-tale, a dream. Had it really happened? Who was this strange woman beside whom she was sitting, sharing the intimate poems of her brother with, like old friends. She experienced the sensation of having been swiftly disarmed and intruded upon, and even, oddly, deceived.
Her head moved back a fraction of a unit of precise measurement and re-appraised Ngozi with suspicious, half-friendly, half-unfriendly, unsure eyes. Like it was in the beginning. – Yes? Who are you?
The returning silence, cold and dividing, began to mature.
Ngozi suddenly understood Ada. She smiled tenderly. Into her handbag she reached, extracted a black, silver-capped pen and then a tiny slip of blue paper. Carefully she balanced the little paper on the side of her bag and, luckily, the bus was temporarily caught in a traffic-jam at Ijaiye. The type that Lagosians call the Standstill, in contradistinction to the Go-Slow and the Hold-up.
Quickly she wrote her name and telephone number down, then wordlessly handed it over to Ada.
“That’s my office telephone number. Please tell him I said Hi.” She smiled again, then turned her head forward; then turned back again, smiling even more disarmingly and added: “and, oh, by the way… Merry Christmas – one day in arrears.”
“Same to you too…”
Ngozi had turned her face away. She didn’t speak again. At the next bus-stop, Iyana-Meiran, she alighted from the bus and left a thoughtful Ada again without her presence, as it was in the beginning.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Part 6
Part 5
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
(This is the end of the excerpts. The whole book can be obtained via Amazon)
Read the full book:
Eine seltne Melodie
Eine Waldfee war sie
Ein Flötenlied samt Wanderlust
Neugier und Nostalgie…
Und als sie wieder ging
Dies schlafander Schmetterling
Ward’s bittersüß in meiner Brust
Wie Neugewinn und Neuverlust.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
