The red rush Autumn is on the thrush Mush mush And a flush of lush You are more than a crush - Hush. I can’t brush you aside. I lied. Che Chidi Chukwumerije. Poems from the inner river
AUTUMN
IT WAS AUTUMN WHEN WE MET
It was autumn when we met
Trees were reddening
Leaves were falling
Hearts were aching to spill the truth
Autumn, autumn
Cooler nights
Autumn, autumn
Mistier heights
It was autumn when we met
Days were shortening
Eyes were focusing more sharply
On every strange new thing –
To discern the whole truth
Before the snow-blanket
Stored any promises
About to be made –
Diamonds and promises are forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
MEMORIES OF FALKENSTEIN
The years have raced by
Yet our story is not begun
Two hearts cannot cry
Without reason, and upon
My heart I see the snowclad valley again
The mist, the promise, the joy and the pain
And I know it simply
Surely and firm
Our river runs deeply
Unbroken, fullterm
Be not afraid to follow yon distant star
Until you love me, you won’t know who you are.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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.
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.
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.
LOVING BOTH
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
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.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 