(Still asking “What does it all add up to?”*)
Early wayfarer
Whose feet knew the language
Of the roadside grass
Scion of the Upland Stock
Who never feared the fire
Of the climbing sun
Born to count daylight dreams
In digits of fleeting moments
Unfazed by the curious calculus
Of numbers and fluttering figures
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Wonder led to Knowledge,
Knowledge to Wisdom,
As you divined your way
Through Ifa’s mathe-magical divinations
With polyvalent prowess
And uncommon profundity
You surprised our questing universe
With rainbow stars
And countless gifts
What is Life if not
An endless chain of
Plusses and ceaseless minuses?
Deep, doughty, diligent
Patient, fair, unfailingly humane
Born to think, born to count
Forty long years since
Here we are, still asking
“What does it all add up to”?
A riff on the title of Professor Olubunmo’s 1984 Valedictory Lecture at the University of Ibadan.