The fact that a thing goes the way it goes Doesn’t mean it was meant to go that way But in the end, however way it goes, If you follow goodness, it will go your way. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
goodness
GOODNESS FIRST
When you whet the dry water wheel It churns your mind and turns your thoughts From stone to bread for the unfed Soul food for those well-bred With longing, because longing is the art Of belonging to the wellspring of intuition. Then you will love the Good More than you love the hood More even than you love your blood For Good alone is of God; Hood is human, blood is earthly - Without goodness they are empty. Goodness above all. Goodness first. Be good, for it will quench your thirst. Che Chidi Chukwumerije
GOOD WILL WIN
Evil resides in a deep inchoate place inside the human soul, from where it defeats all outward forms created to destroy it.
But Good resides in an even deeper, more intuitive space, from where it encompasses and bamboozles and defeats evil.
We just have to keep on being good – even if we constantly change the outward expression of our inner goodness.
We just have to keep on trying.
– 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
SUBTLE AND HIDDEN
The real evil is always on a finer level that can often not be directly captured with words. It is what it triggers that confronts us and we can confront, not it itself. The same with the real good. Many times we are trapped in a fruitless struggle against surface-level semantics, unable to enter into a context that can avail us with the possibility of combating the true evil content itself in its origin. Be it a person, a volition, a system or a trend, the character of the material world forces us to fight out the battle on a proxy inaccurate topic-plane, unable to reach the real evil, unable to manifest the real good.
It is the way of the world of matter: to bring good and evil together and yet, ironically, keep them far apart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR
Elementary particles
You and I
And our every thought of kindness
Wrapped up in temporary blindness
The thought will go
But the kindness in its heart will remain timeless.
Thousands of years later
Geologists can tell you where
A river once flowed.
Such is the parable of human hearts
And the tracks of our tears
And the marks we leave in each others’ lives.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
IF THERE BE
If there be a she
Where is she?
If there was a she
Where was she?
If there be a he
Which is he?
If there was a he
When was he?
If there be a we
What are we?
If there was a we
Wherefore were we?
If there be an I
Why am I?
If there is goodness in the human race
If there is love in the human heart
If there is hope in the human being
Why are we still not there
Where we once were
When we had goodness and love and hope
In our hearts
On our tongues
And as the work of our hands…?
If I have a friend
Please help me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AS YOU AGE
From one to the next bondage
One to the next stage of life
Strife follows on strife
As you age.
If joy was a seed
I hope you planted it
If life requested a good deed
I hope you granted it –
’Cause that’s all you’ll have
When you cross the grave.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
image: wilhei/pixabay
LOVE FOREVER
To know the heart of things,
Like a boy, like a youth, would…
To perceive the Voice that brings
The Clarity that it could
And indeed always does,
That we may understand our flaws…
When did I forget how to read
The truth behind people’s facades?
When did my heart cease to bleed
On behalf of my neighbours’ bad fads?
And why do I even write at all?
What do I gain? Do I rise or fall?
I walk alone upon this earth
And expect nothing other than this…
I awake each day like it’s new birth
And through the day I learn it is…
And why I continue is the fact
That that posterity will love this Act
With which I hereby seal this pact.
Just love, and look back never –
We who love shall live forever.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
WHAT REALLY MATTERS
Have you ever wondered if all the great deeds of nation builders also secured them a mansion in God’s House? Have you ever wondered if all the brave deeds of freedom fighters also helped them in the battle against the darkness in the Beyond? Have you ever wondered if all the profound thoughts of thinkers also showed them the way upwards once they crossed over into the other side? You see, I am one of those people who DO believe in life after death. The question is: Of everything we do while here on earth, which of them really make any difference to what happens on the other side? And then my thoughts go to the little acts of kindness and love that soften the harsh human day and brighten the dark night of inner loneliness. And something tells me that this alone will show the way when one day your feet are lost in another world.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 