From Abor to Columbus

  Gods of my Birthwaters
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my soul) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go with me) and whatever are my thoughts
(you are in the thoughts)


Gods of my Birthplace
I have no life (you are my life)
I have no future (for you are
my future) and I have no dream of my own
(for you are in every dream)

where can I go
without you (can the tiger deny itself
the spots in its skin)
I carry the birthmark
of the tiger

but here is the deepest sorrow
the darkness I carry in my waywardness
stranded at crossroads away from Home
(and this is the root of the problem) I’m in love
with macaroni-n-cheese
(and I’m told that’s civilization
away from yam puddings we knew at Home) and we
are forced to drink stinging grief and smile calmly

I have taken a new name (and it wrung my hands
and killed my memory of Home) and turn my soul
to a stone and under the dark veil (I have to learn to live again)

it’s the he-goat that learns something
when it loses an ear
on the long running highways
of blues

how can I forget to pay my debts
to ancestral Birthwaters
when many stones are thrown
at my last smile and the pit
has become my solitary mast
at the bay of the Master Termite

it is the herring that said
homebound is the last resort of the maimed goat
maybe, when the northern breeze comes
I’ll take the deep dive Homeward to where
the broods eat grains of sorghum from scuffed
pages of the mother’s palm and the sun’s last rays
bring joy to dying lips

walking this long dark road
dancing to nowhere to call Home

your tattoos on my soul shatter my dreams
and here I sit holding to an albatross
searching through echoes
of yesterdays for a bright eye
to see through footprints of frozen tears

in this twilight zone
I gather in the silence
the will to sail on before the sun
is gone from silence
and the lighthouse eaten by the storm