THE PASSAGE

Christopher okigbo

BEFORE YOU, my mother Idoto,

Naked I stand;

Before your weary presence,

A prodigal

Leaning on an oilbean,

Lost in your legend

Under your power wait I

On barefoot,

Watchman for the watchword

At heavensgate;

Out of the depth my cry:

Give ear and hearken…

DARK WATERS of the beginning.

Ray, violet,and short, piercing the gloom,

Foreshadow the fire that is dreamed of.

Me to the orangery

Solitude invites,

A wagtail, to tell

The tangled-wood-tale;

A sunbird, to mourn

A mother on spray.

Rain and sun in single combat;

On one leg standing,

In silence at the passage

The young bird at  the passage

SILENCE FACES at crossroads:

Festivity in black…

Column of ants,

Behind the bell tower,

Into the hot garden

Where all roads meet:

Festivity in black…

O Anan at the knob of the panel oblong,

Hear us at crossroads at the great hinges

Where the players of loft organ

Rehearse old lovely fragment, alone-

Strains of pressed orange leaves on pages

Bleach of the light of years held in leather:

For we are listening in cornfields

Among the windplayers,

Listening to the wind leaning over

Its loveliest fragment…..