Category: Niyi Osundare

So far and yet so near

     There must be a magic pull

In the ebony aura of your absence

     And the velocity of migrant winds

Across your lush and lyric acres

     Where sighs saunter into songs

And laughter echoes through the night

     While the eaves unplug their vigilant ears

So far, so near

     Smiles lengthen into miles

Ardent wayfarers count the steps

      Of running rivers even as

Expectant mountains mistress their memories

     From their clout beneath the clouds

The timeless sky teases the sunflower

     And its soft, obedient clock

The wagtail watches it all

     From its tender twig

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Talkative odidere* keeps processing the tale

     From its studios among the leaves

So far, so near

     Green memories season into brown   

But the Road that took you away is busy

     Laying the carpet for your earnest return

* Odidere: Parrot

• State-of-the-Nation Snaps  {Part 1)

Do you know what it means

     To sleep every night

With HUNGER in your stomach

     And wake up the day after

Dizzy and utterly drained

Do you know what it means

     To faint, then fall

In crowded paniative* queues

     Staggering back home three days later

With empty bowls in your trembling hands

Do you know what it means

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     To sicken, then die

From the mildest ailment

     As the caring doctor weeps over your woes

And the needed drugs dance beyond your reach

Do you know what it means

     To acquire your ignorance

In bookless schools and roofless classrooms

     Where Mediocrity reigns as absolute monarch

And Platitude counts its coins in a gilded palace

Do you know what it means

     When the university no longer has its universe

And Gown strikes a perfect rhyme with clown

     When the compost bed of ideas

Has become the graveyard of dreams

Do you know what it means

     To exist and not to live

To bear each day like a heavy yoke

     To count on a plethora of prayers

And phantom miracles behind the clouds

* A Yoruba-derived pun on the word ‘palliative’. The two Yoruba syllables, ‘pani’, at the beginning of the word means, literally, ‘kill person’.

Who is afraid of the Tree*?

Who is afraid of the Tree

     The forest’s green glory

Skyscraper and loyal carpet

     Robe and sash that never fray nor fail

Who is afraid of the Tree

     With roots deep down in earth’s mysterious basement

Where tangled toes renew the union of mud and matter

     And the merry murmurs of sober soil

Who is afraid of the Tree

     Whose mothering shade embowers our blessings

The philosopher’s evergreen crown

     Rousing roost for the poet that stands and stares

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Who is afraid of the Tree

     Who doctors our lungs

And un-chains our nerves

     Whose canopy is our cap and crown

A song winds through the woods

     Echo from the hills    

Magic to the ear

     Eternal fun for the laughing leaves            

Sheathe that machete

    Un-tooth that chainsaw

Remind the timber merchant of their prodigal greed

    Plant tomorrow, un-desert our dreams

*Ask the ecocidal chainsaws of University of Ibadan’s Heritage Park