The beach was a friend
Whose waves like fingers
Wrapped themselves around
The hooves of the horses on
Which Kwame and I flew across wet sand
And Daddy took lost pictures
In the background, barefooted
While Mummy and Azuka
Laughed at us cheerfully.
Bar Beach on a Saturday
Long gone away.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
Just now I saw a morning star, luminous in the sky high up above me. And then suddenly I see it no more. Blue-grey clouds are journeying past in silent, ominous solemnity. Morning has dawned. The birds, they are a-singing. Early people are writing their feet into the road… and I am sitting outside, writing poetry and pretending it is prose.
Perhaps by the time I am through, and raise my head anew, the clouds would have gone completely by, and my star will be visible to me again. But if not, yet still I carry within me the picture of my morning star, as luminous in my heart as it was luminous in the sky.
I suppose this is what they call Nostalgia.
Now, see: the sun is rising, and the light is come again. Star, sun and light. And there is spirit inside of me – spirit and love.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Look not too far
In search of what is gone
Because what was
Is what will be
In me is the fire and the power
The rock, the stone, the adamantium
Is inside the heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Suddenly the snow came
I had waited
And watched the mountain-tops
Snow-capped
All around was a struggling winter
Asserting itself clumsily
When the skies were not blue, it drizzled
The clouds passed away
Temperature refused to fall, stood straight –
I walked deep in thought
On the Mountain, I heard the Bells
Ever and again they met in one sound
A single song. I walked up
And drove away before dawn. It did not
Snow until the airbus was about
To leave the Gate. I watched it
And recalled in my memory
The feel of snow.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
They say a time will come
When upon this earth
Evolution will girdle its gains
Back again around its girth
Many a wondrous tree
That we cherish and deeply love
Will, year by year, with time
Evolving slow dissolve
Many a beloved animal
Continents, rivers, plateaux
Even man, the so-called crown
Yes, our body too will go
And one day, even she
Heaven’s gate and heaven’s door
The lovely lovely rose
On earth will be no more.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 