TIMING

We will
tell the time

and the time
will tell us.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TIME WILL TELL

Time is such a strange thing. We always forget how long it is. One day you will change and you will look back and ask yourself Why. Why did I do that? Why did I not do that? Why did I say that? Why did I not say that? Why. Was it really worth it?

If it was, you will know and you will be happy. If it wasn’t, you will know and you will be sad.

But only time will tell you what your heart is still too blind or too stubborn or too immature to see today.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Undulating Plains

THE HURTING SPACE

Allow yourself the space to hurt,
To mourn, to miss what is gone;
If your tears want to wet your shirt,
Let them fall, and flow, and run.

Give yourself enough time to heal,
The heart needs a while to transform;
To intuit, to perceive, to deeply feel
Is for the heart simply the norm.

Walk away slowly from your past,
No need to rush, you’re not coming back.
Take in everything, first to the last,
And then continue down that one-way track.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

WHENEVER

Sometimes there is
Sometimes there isn’t
A perfect time for things

Sometimes you wait
Sometimes you just do it
When your heart stings
And your love bell rings

Whenever it comes
Just flow with it
Taking whatever it brings
On wild or on gentle wings
When your heart sings.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

IS TIME A CIRCLE?

Is time a circle, not a line?
Does it have a center?
A Center to which we return
When we lose our Center?
A moment in our childhood,
A time from another life,
Something that never changes,
A piece of eternal life.
A recurring dejavu -
I have been here before
And so have you
Like Waves on the sea shore.
The seasons recur for a reason
The past repeats itself intermittently
We come from the Future
And it is waiting for us to return impatiently.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

DON’T WASTE TIME

I don‘t waste time.
There is no wasted second
Or minute or hour in my day.

A day with me
Is a month with many others
Every moment counts everyday.

Every thought, word,
Every action, emotion, every intuition
Everything has a role to play

Everybody I meet
Has something to return to me
Or is someone I must rightly repay.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

GIVING TIME AND SPACE

When someone asks for time and space
Give it to them
They are not necessarily running away from you
They might really just need time and space
To come to terms with the fact of you.

And if they are running away from you
Then there’s no need to want them close to you.
It’s not an insult or an attack
It’s just a chance to find true happiness for both of you
Each in their own way, own time and own space.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

READY OR NOT

By the time you’re ready for me
I’ll be ready for me too
I’ll no longer need you to
Complete me and hold steady for me.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TIME IS TOO LONG SOMETIMES

You have to wait a little while to really
Get to know people’s character truly
If you let them unfold themselves freely
Around you they will unravel duly -
Yes, they will start with a façade first ideally
But the heart, the heart, the heart is unruly
It will break rank and show itself verily
Eventually, for patience grinds masks cruelly
To submission. Truth emerges voluntarily.
Not every friend is a friend
Not every enemy is an enemy
But sometimes you have to wait till the end
To recognise each person clearly.
Unfortunately by then it might be too late
To correct what happened at the gate.
You let the wrong person in
And kept the wrong person out -
O voice within, o voice within, o voice within,
Help me to accurately check people out.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river

TIME MATTERS

If there were no time
There would be no pleasure
For there would be no experiencing,
No piling up of inner treasure,
No maturing, no developing,
No struggle against which to measure
Growth, delicious, ever unfolding,
For eternity gained is the time spent.
If there were no time,
If Everything happened in one moment,
There would be no rhyme.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river