Sun-burnished
The sea slit
The morning lit up
Furnished my wit
The varnished mirror beneath me crawls
And over-yonder my sun it calls
Back tarnished memory bit by bit.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
memory
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
COMRADE
There was an eagle in your eyes
In your gait
In your voice
In your words
In your deeds
In your mind
In your Heart, Daddy –
It was you. Your spirit. Your essence.
That eagle is flown away today
Six years ago
But the arch of its flight is still imprinted
In my memory
Like daylight in the nighttime.
A Comrade in life
And a Comrade in the afterlife.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
In Memoriam:
Comrade Uche Chukwumerije
11.01.1939 – 19.04.2015
Ugo Mba 1 Isuochi
Dike Ogu Ndi Igbo
Convinced Socialist. Proud Panafricanist.
Father. Teacher. Comrade. Enigma.
FOREVER IS A LAND OF GOODBYES
One of the most beautiful things
I have found
Is to be able to let go of the past
And move on –
But never forget the past.
I love every pain
Every joy
Every regret and remorse
Every parting and every loss
Every victory and every memory
For by the very act of going
They left something with me
That will live in me forever…
Forever is a land of goodbyes
And new beginnings.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
WHEN THE PATH FEELS WRONG, YOU SEARCH HARDER
You might sometimes find yourself, for long periods of your earthlife, striving after the wrong things; even worse, striving via the wrong principles and means; unaware of how you got there, sometimes unaware perhaps even of whatever it was you once really wanted, and not knowing how to change back onto the right track.
This is a trick that life plays on every Seeker – to force you to light up the inner Lantern within your consciousness; for the aim of the cocoon is to turn the caterpillar into a butterfly. So too does life make you blind in order to awaken your Insight – and then, nothing can blind you anymore apart from you yourself. Sometimes the wrong path is the right path, as long as you keep on honestly and tirelessly seeking. You will find yourself.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
REMEMBER
Sunday
My body has returned from Worship
My spirit not yet
The sounds around me are like a dream
Far away
Where sunrise is sunset
The home around me is
A faint reflection of another Home
I often forget.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
VOICES NEAR
Has Music jarred you through and through before? I don’t mean the base, coarse Music of now. I’m talking about the High Trumpets of the Immortal Realms. Have you heard them before?
Have you heard your heart beat before? I mean not the muscle. I’m talking about the leap of the flame in you when Heaven gave you a Name. What’s your Name?
Show me your friends, man, and I’ll tell you who you are – your real friends. Show me your Palms and I’ll teach you your destiny.
Have you ever before been blinded by dazzling Sunlight? Not the sun in the sky, but the Sun Above All Skies. – Show me your face, sister, and I’ll read a Million things thereupon.
Yesterday gave birth to today. Today yields tomorrow, the known unknown.
When I am alone, alone, sometimes, I remember my brother faraway… Not he who died recently, but he who has never once died. The Immortal Spirit whom I knew – before we were born as brothers on earth – in a blue Kingdom far so far away. A Kingdom whose Name, if I ever knew it, I have long forgotten.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LIKE A CLOUD WATCHES A RAIN DROP FALL
Like a cloud watches a rain drop fall
An archer a misguided arrow reject recall
A mountain an avalanche gather and roll
A doctor a young departing soul
An old woman the memory of early innocent flirt
A tailor a beloved yarn vanish into a shirt
So I remember tonight all those I ever hurt –
Growing up is life’s only comfort.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
CONSTANT CRY
He lived with us very briefly
When I was still a child
My father’s elder brother
When we prayed before our meals
And made the sign of the cross
He teased us, Protestants, about having gone Catholic
When he shaved in the morning
He explained to us the mysterious science
Of shaving stick, cream and blade
Other than that he didn’t talk much
A quiet quiet quiet man
Hurt no-one, thoughtfully kept to himself
Very different from the others
Never preached, never argued, never moralised
Never scolded, just silently observed
Three decades have passed
Rarely our paths ever crossed again
A short Hello each time, nothing more
I’m still trying to understand
The pain I’ve felt all morning today
Since I heard of Uncle Joe’s death
It doesn’t make sense
Someone I hardly knew
Just a few childhood memories
Just a few memories
That remind me of a time
Rich in memories and childlike insight
And a few memories
Of a quiet adult who never found a voice
In a culture of big egos, loud voices and aggression
His silence was louder, calmer, more lasting
So deep that only his death
Would open the deep wound of memory in my heart
His middle name was Ahamefula
Meaning “May my name not get lost” –
No, dear Uncle, it will not.
In loving memory of
Joseph Ahamefula Chukwumerije
1935 – 2013
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
REFLECTIONS ON TRANSITION
The earth is the mother
And the physical body the womb
In which the soul incubates and grows
Before birth into the beyond.
Each time we on earth are born
We have but been sunk
As a seed into a surrogate mother’s womb
To grow there a little strong.
Death is but the midwife
Dying the throes of labour and pain
Someone misses you each time you are born
Something receives you back at death again.
And all the things you did on earth
Shall be as a dream in the womb
So heed your spirit even while in the flesh
For it alone remembers its home.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 