This is December
by Obinna Chilekezi
Laughter runs through the season ahead
as marigold flowers smile their way
with yellow teeth
along bush paths
In this smiling season
A drunk
dressed festive staggers homeward
Strutting and smiling
Like the marigolds
A moony dog barks
and barks at the drunk
Who in bleeding anger responds
O’ dog, O’ dog, O’ dog
If you had drunk what I drank,
Can you walk, can you talk, can you?
It’s a season well
mixed with laughter and tales…
and the year’s dying harvest,
and of the juicy gnomes…
I have to go home
This is December
And Xmas is in the air
12/11/18
—
Rain
by Adaobi Chilekezi*
As I watch the sky
Darken, it becomes cloudy
With the windy wind blowing
And what’s furiously next?
Is rain!
Pitta, patta, pitta, pitta
On my roof as it rains
Beautiful tears of the sky
Washing away the dusts,
Washing away my sorrows
The rain
Cooling off the day,
Putting smiles on the crops
Yes the rain is here
It is for our joy.
—
*14 year-old daughter of the poet Obinna Chilekezi
—
Global Village
by Obinna Chilekezi
My totem masquerade
Dancing … took a call on its GSM
Recently, at our village square
Yes, the black child mystery
Meets the white child
My village meets their village
Indeed, our global village!
—
Author’s note
It happened on one of the Christmases I had gone to watch our masquerade that all of a sudden one stepped out to a corner, fished out his GSM and took a call. We nearly burst in laughter. Can you imagine my growing up years when the elders held that masquerades are spirit beings? (See Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart). I remember those days as a child watching a masquerade bare handedly climbing a palm tree to dance on its top. Indeed Things have Fallen Apart with our culture.
