A stroll through the curious trees Respectfully quiet to put you at ease What you hear is the noonday breeze Tell us your thoughts, human, if you please. But you hear neither the watching trees Nor the quietly questioning noonday breeze All you know - correct me, if you please - Is that in your heart you simply feel at ease. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
trees
TREE LIFE
The trees speak to me
And tell me their Story
Some are planted first
For their growth will be long
And their fruits will come last
To feed the weakening strong
Who have made it to the end
Some flower early
To awaken in the young
The thirst for song, and in
The old the memory of beauty
As a birth gift for the Beyond
Some will be the fruit-bearers
In the middle of time
So that along the journey
Nature will take care of every
Wanderer, every Wonderer, every Seeker
The human life is spread out
Into stages and phases and types of natures
In every one you will find a helper
A teacher and a friend
This is love
Every Tree too has a Helper
Invisible to you and me
But this is love –
God leaves no one to struggle
Without giving him or her – or it – a helper too
For those whose leaves never drop
For those whose leaves drop and grow again
For those who stand straight
For those who bend in the wind
For those who grow unannounced, lonesome and rare
For those who meet me everywhere
I say Thank You.
The trees speak to me
And tell me their Story:
Now that you’ve tasted of the tree
Of the knowledge of good and evil
It is time for you to taste the fruit
Of the tree of life.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
EYES ON THE BALL
Up the road a few trees beckon
A moment of shade on a hot sunny day
If I stop and seek here refuge
I’ll miss my appointment at the end of my way
For my path is not my goal.
No thing of beauty will hold me down
No period of quiet will slow me down
No place of peace will hold me back
No woman, no wine, no work, no glory will change my story
For the path is not the goal, no matter what they say.
– che chidi chukwumerije.
DROP AWAY
A few birds still twitter
Even when the woods are cold
And when a gentle wind blows
And the autumn leaves russle
Hush hush
Around my ears
Then my years drop away again
Back to the beginning
And rush ahead once more to the end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 