Remembrance: Clara Adeyemi

By Toyin Falola

 

(For Clara: our wife, our mother, our friend)

 

Today the world remains the same; the birds

 

Howl and leap into the air, and your memories

 

Return as sequences of past events, and the sound

 

Of your laughter that still lingers in the air

 

In your room that remains I search the wall

 

For your face; for your picture; for the words

 

Of love you might have scribbled on the calendars

 

Before death took you to the state of eternal silence

 

Clara, I love you the way the

 

Earth loves the touch of rain; the way

 

A mother loves a child, and the way

 

A child loves his mother

 

Each day that passes I long for your presence

 

For the shawls of your tender words to cocoon me

 

As your memories run to me as a rain of grief,

 

Soaking me each moment my eyes swell in tears

 

But today, the world never changes

 

It is another year, and the world

 

Still remains the same; the earth still consumes

 

More bodies, and the breeze still blows

 

Here, I still long for you, even when

 

My prayers voyage in the wind to your grave,

 

I still crave your presence as arid land

 

Craves the heavy downpour of rain.

 

• Professor Falola, University of Texas, Austin, USA.