(for Christianne Fioupou)
Bridge builder
Silence lessener
Tamer of the eternal turmoil
Between contending tongues
The horizontal strife in their syntax
The paradigmatic leanings of their words
The seeming idiocy behind their idioms
The loaded profundity of their proverbs
Pause
And so it was
When The Road* led you to your quickening quest
And whispering Embers burst into blaze
Across your Mediterranean bridge
How did King Baabu’s barbarous barking
Sound 0n the lips of a different bully:
Red like the fiery fury of Thunder King
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Or soft like the mellow expressivity of the Gallic tongue
How did you manage the magic rendering
Of Silences’ “painted harmonies”
Or the redolent tonalities
In the anxious patience of Waiting Laughters?
Tell us about the passionate territoriality of tongues
And the semantic serendipity of lucky correspondences
Diligent undoer of Babel’s babble
Patience being your province; wisdom your wand
* References to some of the works translated by Professor Fioupou: The Road and King Baabu (Wole Soyinka); Embers (Soji Cole); Thunder King (Femi Osofisan); Labyrinths (Christopher Okigbo); Waiting Laughters (Niyi Osundare).