Recently, I flowed
I was a river
I forgot yesterday and
Today remembered me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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THE VILLAGER
ONCE UPON a time, in a village near Enugu, nestling in the luscious green valleys between the plateaus of the Udi hills, in south-eastern Nigeria, there settled a city-dweller, a young urbanite, come to hide from fellow city dwellers and indeed the city itself in the quiet of this peaceful village.
At first the quiet laze of the unhurried village folk was a great delight to him and a welcome change from the impersonal razzmatazz of the city. However, after some time there arose in him an itch, product of a silent but powerful addiction to city-life which, unknown to him, had become a part of his constitution.
The restless itch became exacerbated to the point where he was about to abandon all hope of a more fulfilling existence in the rural and resort back to the urban.
That was when he met the villager.
Previously he had only seen him fleetingly, as he went to or returned from his farm, presunrise and postsunset, without ever clearly discerning his features or exchanging a word or direct gaze with him.
But did dusk descend later than usual upon this fateful day? Or did the villager’s own restlessness propel him out of his farm, setting him homebound, earlier than usual?
It could be anything.
But as the city-dweller looked up from his front door, there he saw the familiar fleeting figure… only this time he was much more visible in the hanging lights of mesmerizingly tantalisingly unhurried sunset.
For the first time he saw the villager’s features and, lo and behold, he was a young man just like himself; but his face appeared to have been chiselled out of smooth, hard stone, fired in flames like metal ore, and then brought to life by a soft breath from heaven. For the eyes which momentarily seized the city-dweller’s, though set in the most rugged of features, were gentle and kind. Suddenly they seemed so similar, these two very unsimilar men.
Only for a moment did these two men lock gaze and then the villager looked again ahead of him and, sack in hand, hoe slung over his shoulder, sturdily yet gracefully walked on home, a half-spring, half-unspring, in his heels, a man freely born to farm his village land, oblivious to everything else, happy and content in his destiny.
The next day the city-dweller packed his belongings and returned to his home in the city. He had found what he came to the village searching for. He had found and become the villager in his heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
TOMORROW
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.
A BUTTERFLY SHOULD LEAVE ITS COCOON BEHIND
I love you Baby
But sometimes Love
Is not enough to make Lohengrin stay.
Don’t knock on the door
Of the Unknown, if you don’t
Want to be overtaken by the Unknown.
But if you must, you must
Even when the line you have crossed
Is the boundary of trust.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
RUNNING WATERS
The story you told in the west
Is not identical
With the laughter you laughed in the north
Nor with the song you sang in the south
Nor with the thoughts you expressed in the east…
The language you spoke on the mountain
Is very different
From the tongue you mouthed in the valley
And from the violins you bowed through the woods
And the ballad you composed upon the blue-green meadows…
The roar you let out as you charged past us
Has a different meaning
From the groan the desert drew out of you;
And the whisper which you sighed in this grateful heart
Is not the same cry with which you flow into the sea.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DEATH IS UNENDING
There is death
Without dying
Death of old things
Of shedding old feelings
You become a ghost
Of your former self –
Restless in peace
Because you’ve got so much to do.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
DISAPPEARING
That which is over
Feels like a dream
Even if it ended
Just yesterday
No matter how far in the past
No matter how far away
An unended story lies
It is with you here today
The heart is a miracle of chapters
Where pages grow blank
And as the days turn to nights and back
So life turns the pages of your heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
INSPIRATIONS
The things that inspired me yesterday
Still inspire me today
And will still inspire me tomorrow –
And yet
My poems,
Though they be of one mind,
Will continue to change and to grow
Because Inspiration
Does not change,
But I,
The poet, do.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NAIJA
They call you many things
Name-calling is a game of stones
Hydra-headed mad woman chattering away
Away noisily to the sea – come to me, let me be
My own jam-packed contradiction.
Let’s take a stroll from the desert to the sea shore.
Before you get there, you will have to heal
The sick and the infirm, educate
The ignorant, the uninformed, the misinformed, the rudderless, help
The needy, house
The homeless, don’t forget
The aged, the retired, give money to
The poor, awaken hope
In the despairing along the long way to Africa’s destination.
Dictators and cabals raise hell
Entertainers and fanatics raise the roof
And the corrupt raise the cost of life –
We’ve had enough of them all
Let’s raise our standard of living.
There can never be freedom, never
Be peace, nor security, in a system that nurtures
The endemic poverty of this
Many people.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
A DEEP AWESOME SILENT MOON
This night’s moon
Is wet and red
Pensive, heavy
Soaked in a silent mystery
And a bloody cry as of hunting wolves
Unheard of and staining
The blue-black canvas of the tree-dotted nightscape
She struggles
This fascinating moon
To lift herself above the palms
And jab
Our consciousness
With wishes from the embers
Of the invisible weavings of life
The faithfulness
Of the ever-returning moon…
Soon the tree-tops
Who now stare levelly at the moon
Will also have to raise their eyes up
If they want to see
Her face…
O lovely awesome red moon
Rising above the palm trees
Ascending again
Sink like the silence of peace
Deep into my breast.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
