Nature shapes and nature forms
Humans, mountains, seasons, worms
Nature cools and nature warms
Hearts and loves, volcanoes and storms
But stretch out your hand to touch nature
And all you’ll touch are her dorms and norms
For nature herself is hidden from capture
And all we see are her shapes and forms.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
What is night?
Who gave it eyes
To see my soul?
Who gave it ears
To hear my inner voice?
Who gave it the sense
To smell my fears?
What is night
After midnight?
Who gave it arms
To hold me?
Who gave it words
To answer
The questions in my soul.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Illustration “What Is Night?” by Swana van Schaardenburg.
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
Basically to do with respect – or the lack of it. A disrespect that has its roots in an unexamined, unquestioned presumption which a person has grown up with from childhood.
The presumption becomes the basis for all further interactions with and reflections upon the people or places to which the presumption applies. This presumption forms the bedrock of the basic attitudes the person develops towards the object of consideration. It stands like a wall in the face of a reappraisal of the people, object, situation or place; it is wielded as a weapon, held up as a shield in one’s dealings with them.
A common tendency towards lethargy might then prevent one from examining the presumption, which may also be called a prejudice. To examine the prejudice means facing the danger of encountering and acknowledging its incorrectness or partial incorrectness, and taking the trouble to build up a new view of and relationship with the discriminated – and thus making an about-face.
So it becomes a matter of pride. And, passed on from generation to generation, it will stand through the centuries like the Rock of Gibraltar, and no-one will know its beginning anymore.
Pride is a drug. It offers you comfort and succour, with gentle paws and steely claws that entrap what they embrace.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Where are we rushing to?
Death is waiting at the end anyway
Go there slowly
Enjoy the ride
Take long looks out of the window
Drink in the sunshine
Drown the moon in your soul and laugh
Out loud
Let the passing flower and
The passing cloud leave an impression
Upon your memory.
Pain is our ally when we look for love.
Remember, you will make mistakes
You will hurt the people you love
And they will hurt you back
And Regret will not heal the wounds
Or make anything better
Only worse
But your heart will find its place of peace
Someday
Somewhere
Somehow
Because I love you.
Even when I’m dying, still I love you to the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
I saw a departed soul
There
On the other side of the river
Yet there is no bridge
Across the river
So how did he get there?
How did he cross to the other
Side of the river
River, river, flowing home
Bathed in the mild glows of
The fields across
The river
Stood a soul
And he said, Brother
Goodbye…
River, river, flowing, going home.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Quietness nay silence
Like a virginal victim of violence
Was broken by a passing train in the night
Lonely and out of sight.
I won’t go near the window
Why reopen sorrow?
Let it pass by like a train in the distance
Heralding a second chance.
Night breathes, asleep
Silence sinks into ethereal deep
None shall stir until the dawn doth break
Only I – why am I still awake?
If I were clairvoyant, I would swear
There is somebody with me here
In that quiet hour when night is day
Spirits come out to play.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 