BIGOTRY CONTINUES to exist upon the face of the earth, but not within its heart. And just as skin-characteristics are skin-deep, so is bigotry only surface-deep. I’m talking about the face of the earth.

But anyone who nurtures bigotry within the heart will continue to nourish it for a long time yet to come. It will not die easily. Is there hope for the flower?

Should I revert to the tales of the heart? Should I revert to the inner sequence? Should I revert to yesterday’s tenderness? The first woman? The last kiss?

Or should I continue into the desert? Should I seek a new oasis and wander after the unknown treasures of the sand? But who can open up the secrets of the sand? A flower?

The first strike was a miss. The first step was the first fall. The first sight was blinded by a pitch-fork. But there will be a second. The second is the other side of the coin.

I want to write a poem. I want to penetrate deep into the heart of the broken home, there where the spirit in us resides. We are all to one another strangers. Bridges we build, communal words we use, eyes we touch when we will, hands we give, yet remain unto one another strangers. The shared blood was poisoned aye ere we were born. The shared earth was divided already long ago and divided we stand and stare at one another across the border, the boundaries of our little egos and remain each alone. But each is but alone. Little egos. Little worlds. Little by little, if watered, like flowers, perhaps, we grow.

The secrets of the sand, approaching, covering up our footsteps. Hey, I wrote this poem before, when I was young. But if I was young then, what am I now, older or younger? For the first poem was the greater and the latter flow gropes for reconnection with the source that thundered out of the young heart of the finalised decision. Seen once. Pondered once. Grasped once. Perceived once. Decided once. At the start of the journey. And everything else is just the hanging on, the wondering, the new search. We have found but have not yet reached the Goal. We are still on the path. Believing in the flower.

This is what I would like to give to you, a flower in the desert. Do not perhaps think that the Desert is more powerful than the flower. Nay. There you would err. But treasure and protect the flower. Water it anywhere you see it. For the flower alone, of all the forces in the universe, can subdue the Desert.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

Taken from my collection of thoughts and stories: “There Is Always Something More.”