HEAVY WITH THE WEIGHT

The snow is red but not with envy
Heavy with the weight of thought
Waiting for the warmth of friendship
Forgiveness and love and a drop
Of sunlight to melt into the ground
Going it looks ugly but it’s not
Letting go of what you thought you’d found
But, patience, the Earth will eat it all up.
Are you snowing, are you falling
Are you resting, are you thawing
Are you meting, are you calling
For companionship while you’re withdrawing?
Slowly withdrawing…

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

UNITED

If love is like this all the time
Then love is magic; and love and time
Are one.

So let it keep rolling, flowing, growing
When it doth snow, let it keep snowing
Until it’s done.

Because underneath the melting snow blanket
A new beginning of our love forms, and bank on it
We’ll still be one
When it’s done.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

OLD YEAR BECOMES MEMORY

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.