Good morning, true Morning, Child of a Blue Night Spent on an Island of Dawning By a bright Dream light. Invisible sun, I feel you coming, Son of a celestial Height Full of a gazillion suns roaming Beyond earthly sight. I saw you in my dream last night My heart awakened and took flight Driven by longing for a land of light That called me, filled me, with delight Good morning, new Morning, Born of gentle Might, Let the world be gripped by Yearning… Let there be Light! Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
Dawn
TWILIGHT HORIZON
Eternal sunset
Unending dusk
Rolled along the edge of the earth
Creased the Northpole and gave birth to
Eternal sunrise
Never-ending dawn
From dusk to dawn like a painted horizon
At twilight born by a giant drawn.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
LIGHTRISE
When more than the sun rises
And more than the moon is full
When enlightenment itself materialises
Upon and within your soul
When you awaken in the deepest sense
And the light of your spirit fills your eyes
Then shall you experience
The dawn of the morning Lightrise.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
ETERNAL SUNRISE
When the Darkness wakes up in the morning, the first thing it does is to look out of the window, see the Light shinning outside – and become full of anger, envy and rage all over again.
Because yesterday when night fell and it went to sleep, it made the great mistake of thinking that the Light is now dead.
The Light is never dead. It will rise again. It is we who turn our backs on it.
But it will rise again.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
STRIVING
I strive
Therefore I am
I am not
Therefore I strive
Striving is the beginning
And striving is the end
And when the end is over
And I am over with striving
I shall ascend
A smile on my lips
Because the end is the beginning
And the beginning is the end
So long as I am the made
And not the Maker
Besides “Dawn can never be reached
Save by the path of night”*
And there again I shall strive again
For striving is living is joy.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
(*Kahlil Gibran)
IN THE MORNING
The things we know in the morning
The moment we awaken
And from somewhere else are returning
But not yet quite retaken
By the world of thoughts that ever crowd around us
During the hours while we are fully day-conscious
Those things we know as sleep departs
Are as true as true can be
The Hour of Awakening to us imparts
The starkest clarity
It may be painful, may be pleasant
It may be quite surprising
But it is always true and doesn’t
Require verifying
Because if you did awake aright into this certainty
Events themselves will prove to you their authenticity
My thoughts are clear as sleep departs
And I see without guile
Displayed before me all those hearts
With whom I frown or smile.
————–
che chidi chukwumerije
————–
YOU WILL NOT SEE THE SUN YET
After the Still of the Night, if you are listening, you will notice that the birds have begun to twitter, the dogs have started to bark, the cocks to crow. Looking out the window, you will notice that the sky is a tinge less dark and the stars and moon, though clearly visible still, strangely are fast fading too. You will not see the sun yet, but a stranger within you will tell you that the sun is stirring somewhere over an eastern horizon, and the world is waiting with a heart full of wonder, holding its breath, and every yawn is an awakening not a retiring. A quiet energy begins to brew, like a yearning.
Opening your heart, you will perceive that the heavenly song, echoing still on within you, retreating, has faded quietly quietly away again. And, your open heart still open, you will perceive that the harsher vibrations of an embattled intellectual species, human by name, are surging out once more – through windows, doors, walls and hearts and reawakening chaotic minds, through opening unseeing eyes and resettling restless souls, bodies crashing densely out of bed, self-locked plans and plots in mind, they prepare to explode upon the planet, yes, ready and about to punish a guiltless world again with another day of desperate madness starting now just when nature and the natural world would so deeply like to smile the smile of dawn.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
SETTING MOON
The city is overcast with the blue mist of dawn
Swiftly fading
The street lamps of night
Hurriedly dwindling
Yesterday’s man
Softly gazing
A tiger’s cub at the setting moon.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
APRIL
Her glance was taffeta
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Smoothed down my trembling hands
Oh morning glory
Oh these tremors have passed and
I’m asleep again on a Saturday morning
In the birth cradle of April.
Fresh rain, burgundy tears sprinkle sun, sprinkle dawn
Rainbows, silver and gold fingers
Then palmgreen sprouting hope hope
Then palmgreen sprouting hope.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE SINGULARITY OF EVERY
There are many things
That seem to be the same
But are not
Just like dawn and dusk
Those two strangers
Who have a way of appearing similar
And yet have never met
Or seen
Nor ever will
Nor ever be the same.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 