Every day, like a mother,
delivers a new version of me
No matter what binds me today,
tomorrow I will be free.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
change
ONCE WE WERE LIGHT
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down
Drowned out our cry of resistance
And put a bandage over our eyes
A desperate cry for help
Before we fell silent
And started to look silently at our children
The way once our parents looked at us
Now we know what they were thinking:
Retain your magic! Retain your lightness!
Even as they said to us worriedly:
You have to learn to fit into the system –
Knowing it was not the way
But knowing no other way
Or knowing it but not having the heart
To push us off the cliff –
Because not everybody grows wings
When falling through the gap.
The generation gap.
Now we watch our children worriedly
Wanting them to become like us
And wanting them to stay themselves too.
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
RELAY
If every new generation
Rose up twice as high as the one before,
Humanity‘s elevation
Would see us soon knocking on heaven‘s door.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MEMORYLESS TRAVEL
You have to get there to remember.
On the way there you will forget
Where you are going to
And why.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
OPENING UP
My heart was broken
Over and over and over again by life
Until I was sure
That life really loves me
Or else it wouldn’t keep on opening me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
YOU AND YOUR STRENGTH
When I was younger
My strength was stronger
Than I was
And it made me do what it wanted
And made me undaunted.
Now that I am older
I have become bolder
Than my strength
And I make it do what I want
On every other battlefront.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
MIND THE MOMENT
Your time will always pass
And it will pass at a time
Least convenient to you
Just as it came at a time
Not quite expected by you
And lasted for a length of time
Unappreciated by you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
CHANGING
That feeling
That it is the end of an era
And your life is about to change
Every song you play
Is like a lullaby of life’s evening
With morning on the mountain-range
Once distant
Now descending like dawn‘s mist
The way it will constantly re-arrange
It‘s shape before you
And around you and within you
And make you feel new, open and strange.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
ATTENTION TO DETAIL
Every shift in form takes a bit of attention away from content as the consciousness or subconscious seeks through a reappraisal of form, and an attempted understanding of the reason for the shift, to glimpse a hint at the current nature of content. So, the understanding of content – on its way from itself to itself – takes a detour via attention to and understanding of form.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
THE CHANGING JOURNEY
I know how it feels to die, having done so twice in this earthlife. The third time, I guess, will be the last.
In everything, I’ve learned that life comes and goes, like the leaves of a tree, like the steps of a journey, like the chapters of a book, in phases, steps and stages. And the most important recognition of all was this: Don‘t live in the past.
You can never be again the person you once were, nor do you need to. When you wonder – „What happened to me?“ – you miss the point. You are on a journey, a journey of inner development; a journey of character and personality growth; a journey of spiritual maturing. This is the real journey of life.
On this journey, you will pass through many phases of personality, different characteristics of character, you will be different people at different times.
Have the courage to become the new – and when it has grown old, have the courage again to shed it, leave it behind and move seekingly towards the new New. Do not be enticed by outward gains to stay in the old; nor pressured by difficulties to abandon the present or the New. Go your way with integrity, dignity and trust, because Vanity and Indolence are the true enemies on the journey of life.
You will be born many times, and die many times. And the past will be as a Dream. Just like a new born baby cannot remember it’s former earth-lives, so will you even within one earth-life sometimes die and wonder „What happened to me?“
Life happened to you, my friend. Like a train going from station to station, you are journeying from one state of being to another. It might be an upward journey or a downward journey – the choice is yours.
Just remember, what ever you do: Do not live in the past – no matter how good or bad it was. Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and correct a bad round, but you can get up and fight the next one better.
Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and hold on to the last good round you fought. Then you were fresh, now you‘re tired. Then you were strong, now you‘re injured. But you‘ve grown too, in knowledge and experience. So, get up and go into the next round – and give your best.
One good thing about life: it is not boxing. It is greater. Your best rounds are the rounds in which you give not darkness, but Love.
Che Chi-di Chukwu-meri-je.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 