Bottling up the thoughts
Will not get rid of them
Yet speaking them all too soon
Is folly…
In the depth of silence
Assuming silence to be a lake
There is a cave
Wherein it glows like
Happiness
Bury your thoughts quietly within this
Cave of silent happiness
And no matter how rough a storm it be
That rocks the lake…
When all is calm again
Your thoughts
Will emerge matured and multiplied
And urge you
Urge you to set them free…
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I have seen
That Evil
Is deep
It has silenced me
For where it nests
Is the noiseless depth
Pay no attention to my words
They are a distraction
If you want to hear my message
Listen to my silence
My words will show you the way into my silence
Where I talk of treachery no words can describe.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THERE ONCE lived a girl called Vanity. It was in that strange country where newborn babies are left unnamed – simply being referred to as so and so’s first son, so and so’s third daughter, etc – until they have grown into childhood. Only then would their parents and relatives, having up to this time carefully studied the character (for early dawns day) of the one to be named – finally confer upon the child that name which they believed best captured the essence of its core personality.
And so did this girl, from an early age, come to be called Vanity, for she was as proud and vainglorious as a peacock. Vanity believed that the whole world was there just to serve and admire her. She did not care much for others, nor could she tolerate, in her vicinity, another receiving more attention, admiration and adoration than herself. This she simply could not bear. She thus constantly went to all and any lengths to make sure that the attention of everybody would always and only be riveted upon only her. Vanity dressed in the most beautiful of clothes, wore the most attractive ornaments, learned the most alluring manners of self-expression, perfected the most sensational methods of walking and swinging, and – being the scion of wealthy royalty – made it very obvious to the gentry that she had a lot of wealth to spread around. The inevitable consequence of this was that the world divided itself into two groups before her – those who crowded themselves around her and those who avoided her. Great was her pleasure, for ‘her side’ verily outnumbered the other side.
As she grew into a teenage adolescent, a spectacular beauty happened to grow out upon Vanity’s features and fitted itself around her form. Naturally this pleased Vanity extremely and only served to confirm for her and her court her egotistical claim to prenatal supremacy. And at this point her name changed spontaneously from Vanity to Beauty. Beauty became the rave of her time, the talk of town, the object of the envy and idolisation of the women, the desire of the men – exactly what she wanted. Beauty wore her outward beauty like a trophy and used it ruthlessly to acquire everything she wanted, most of which she indeed also got. For people practically worshipped Beauty; they made her their idol, their goddess, their queen. She controlled all.
Such was it that by the time she had become a young woman her name had changed once more – and now everybody called her Power. Power exalted in this name granted to her by her fellow human beings and proceeded to have a crown manufactured for herself on which her name was inscribed for all to see. She became so full of herself that there was no space left for her in which she could continue to expand, nor could her bloated ego grow any further. It neared its peak, its limits. Her ways became stiff and cold, lifeless. She could not find any further height to reach and claim. She became an ornament herself.
And very soon her name became Rigidity. For rigidly fixed was she to the dogged attachment to vanity, beauty and power. She bore no love for other human beings. Frightening and strange became her ways. Rigidity detested her new name intensely and tried to rigidly hold on to the previous one and to thus force the people to keep on calling her by it, but the people, like people like to do, persisted in calling Rigidity by the newest name they had given to her. And the harder she resisted it, the louder they called it.
It happened that, at this time, owing to her persistent attachment to old forms, her health broke down. By the time she recovered, her face, older, less beautiful, remained marked by the deep scars of her illness and struggles, and there was a tired ring to her voice. And, for some unknown reason, the people at this point began to call her Lesson. They pointed at her and said: “Lesson, Lesson, Lesson!” And Lesson saw that they were but pointing her out to the new, young beauty in town and pointing out her own destiny to her too. Lesson was very dejected. Sadly she sneaked out of town in the dead of night and wandered lost and lonely, trying to put a finger on what exactly had gone wrong in her life. And Lesson spent many years trying to understand life. Many lonely years.
And during these years of her travels, fellow wayfarers who saw her simply dubbed her with the name Simplicity, for she walked silent and alone and appeared to do all her things simply. When Simplicity found out that this was her new name, it seemed to her that there was a hidden message and clue in this name. She then began to consciously strive to do all things simply, to think simply and to cultivate true simplicity of the soul. Finally Simplicity settled down in a little hut in a little village where she cultivated farms and gardens and grew to love children and nature.
The people of the village loved exceedingly this obviously aristocratic yet so modest, archaic stranger who had come to live amongst them and, inspired by her ways, they named her Humility. This name struck the surprised Humility with such great humbleness that she again, using it as a guiding star, started striving consciously after true humbleness and humility in her life, in order to become worthy of the name. Humility was ever ready to carry out even the lowliest of tasks and was never too proud to speak up for the truth when she saw it being denied, or even to fight for it, no matter how much of a fool she might appear in the eyes of others for doing so; for in her newfound humility it no longer mattered to her what others thought of her. Because true humility is strength, not weakness, as we all know.
The people of the village learnt much from Humility, who was by now rather an old woman, and gradually they recognised the absolute magnificence of the beautiful female spirit that occupied her old body – which revealed to them the essence of true inner beauty – and, unanimously, they agreed to change her name to Beauty! And so, for the second time in her life, Beauty was called Beauty again, but now for a genuine reason, for the truest of beauty is the beauty of the heart.
Many more years has Beauty now lived amongst the people of this dear and beautiful village, and it is Beauty herself who is now writing down her own long and eventful story. Except that now – now that this village has become a place of that true heavenlike peace and beauty which she has always borne hidden, deep, within her maturing soul – Beauty’s name is no longer Beauty, but she now bears an other and final name which will be the one that will be etched unto her grave tablet when this old, warm body of hers is finally returned to earth. And what do you think this her ninth name is? – It might be Service; or Leadership; or Strength; it could be Love; or perhaps Peace; or even Heaven. It may also be Purity; or Guide; or Guardian; or maybe it could be Mirror. Choose for yourself, every woman out there, do.
I am simply what I should be.
Emptiness always makes the greatest noise. Would that emptiness could learn to become silent, that it may be true and become filled.
Goodbye, Earth. – – –
The beautiful old woman died two days after writing down her own story; and when she was buried, the grateful village people inscribed upon her grave stone the single word…:
HOME.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije (from my collection of short and inspiring stories and essays titled „There Is Always Something More“)
Available on all Amazon stores.
I wish I were a painter, to draw the pictures and paint the concepts that words cannot hold – my words. I believe there are greater poets now and ever, better writers, greater wordists, because I’ve tried and tried but still I’ve not succeeded in telling you what I know. I cannot form it in words, I cannot form it in thoughts, I just know it and understand that it is the world of things which the words have never said.
You cannot tell a woman that you love her. The moment you say it, it is gone. You can tell a man the truth, but you cannot tell him what the truth is – only he must find it out for himself one day. You cannot describe beauty in words. Even the beauty of a beautiful poem cannot be put into poetry again. You did it without thinking – and the moment you started thinking, you did not see it again.
Think a little – little thoughts…
A picture is still worth a thousand and one words. A woman wounded me mortally, yet try as I did, I could not explain in words what she did, and yet I know it Clearly.
You can never change anybody but yourself, because you are the one person to whom you can speak without words, always. And once there is truth, then there is nothing more to say. You can only say the truth, my brother, but you cannot make anybody understand. But, take heart… silence teaches the last lesson finally finally finally finally.
All the things that the words do not say, silence says always.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
The vast spaces of silence
Within a human heart
The sky is not vast enough
To engulf this silence
The sea is itself absorbed and lost
Within this silence
Where are the stars?
Where are all the stars?
The stars are so numerous
Yet see all those vast unlit spaces
In the night-sky
The sky is dark
But my heart is vaster
And as the silence spreads and spreads
And engulfs my Soul
The light is lit
See, see, the light is doubly lit…!
Silence. There is this silence
Inside my heart
And she told me it was simple love –
Together we stand.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Truth undresses
Conscience pricks
Contemplation caresses
What conversation can’t fix.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
To make a promise to love another person, forever, and then to break this promise and say, Goodbye baby… awakens within the hearts of everybody who hears of it a memory of their own broken and unspoken promises.
Noise everywhere. Noise in my head. Noise even in the centre of silence. Lovers are what sages once were, and vice versa. Heartbreak and promises, togetherness, farewells and silence are all trying to resolve themselves within our hearts.
I should never have told you that I loved you, but how could I but not tell the truth? Evermore I understand the importance of silence. Our hearts are broken in silence: a small token to pay for the new powers which soon and steadily awaken in silence within us.
One who can bear the pain of heartbreak; one who can say goodbye and yet always be there; one who can preserve promises in silence unbroken; will read these lines with a knowing smile.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Blessed are the silent
For they shall hear it first…
Blessed are the silent
For they shall hear it first.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Your silence deafens music
The songs don’t move me anymore
But to tears
Your absence ‘tis so loud
Woke me up with a jolt last night
And your emptiness shivered
And I recalled your poems by name
The rain, cheeky, in your hair
The palm wine melody line of dancing pain
It is our way
To do the things that cause us pain
And then share the pain with each other.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE MOURNERS came, with lots of noise and tears, crying their dry eyes out. No one stopped them. They were left to wail and weep, even though they made all that din.
And the merry-makers, theirs was even more dramatic, their lives are simple, they simply make merry. It does not matter the occasion which has brought them together. Their occupation is to sing and be happy, that is their job, their life. In large numbers they came out to lighten up the place, all three categories of them – the clowns, the eaters and the musicians – merrymaking from dawn until everyone else is gone.
And then of course my old friends, drawn out of the distant mists of childhood, reappeared with appropriately long faces. They murmured here and there about a few breaches of tradition but generally they held their peace. Rice and stew were very plenty, palm wine flowed as if the very trees wept, drowning their complaints in their throats; they left everybody alone and except for their ponderous thoughts nobody remembered their presence.
Two T.V. reporters with their camera men, a few newspaper journalists, a couple of ministers and princes, a former president, a galaxy of celebrities, a throng of socialites and a pride of leaders. Soon the whole place was turned from a place of solemn silence to something like the setting for a television talk-show. Who was going to be interviewed? The departed spirit? I chuckled; good that no-one heard me.
The few people who knew me well wondered at all the noise, all the crowd. Could I, who had so dearly nourished simplicity and quiet while still alive, have really wished my departure to trigger this breach of it? They tried to voice their discontent, but my relatives silenced them with the counter-claim that I had always said that everyone was allowed to do as they wished, and so they did not feel it right to disobey my injunction upon my departure.
Clergy of different religions dragged the aura of their history into my home and solemnly spewed prayers into the air, while everyone closed their eyes and kept on chewing their food. And the liars. They were everywhere, telling lies. The gamblers were gambling. The drunkards were drinking. And the lies the liars told were shattering to the core, for the liars had once been my friends.
But, with love, with compassion, my eyes did rest on one or two visitors in whose heart I saw pain at my departure, in whose eyes I saw the glittering pearls of true tears ever and again wiped away with a sigh. I was sad for them, I wished they could feel the touch of my hand on their shoulder, hear my voice as I whispered to them, I’m still alive.
But what can you do? Each person will react in his own wto death, the victor. Each, according to his or her nature, will bring their character to the fore upon your departure and, symphony or cacophony, there is nothing you can do about it, not anymore.
And so I did not stay there long. I had known it would be like this – who doesn’t? And I had made her promise, she who I loved, who I love, promise me, yes I had made her promise me that she would take my body away, far away. And far away, in the heart of the beautiful woods, she and the children we bore, now adults, and our closest closest friends, they stood in a circle around my body. And though they did not see me, they sensed me, sensed that I was there, standing too in the circle with them, our unbroken circle of love. Far away from the noise and noisy thoughts of the world.
One of them played a flute, and the flute was enough, and spoke the language of our hearts; and every thought they thought of me was a thought of love, and my soul was full. And my spirit sang.
And soon the body, old and tired, rested deep in the cool depth of mother earth. There was a prayer my love was praying, and that was when I heard it, the other flute, the heavenly flute, it came from far away, from high high above, gripped my heart, and I saw the way home. At that moment her eyes opened and her love held me one more time, then with a gentle whimsical sigh she let me go.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.y
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 