HOUSE OF TENDER PASSIONS
– For Fatima Salihu
Fati
When sunset welcomes the evening breeze
It puffs out the fragrance of your love
into my many inhalations
like the journeying anthem in the heart of a traveler
Fati
With your rain bowed love
filled within my lungs
I’ll write you a letter of many songs
It shall be delivered to the post office of your heart
Fati
I’ll kite you a poem of many passions
whose rope is longer than the roots of history
it shall stand taller than the height of infinity,
for you’re the song of birds
when the heavens meet the earth
forming a house of tender passions.
For you
I would memorize the secret
lurked in a Swahili fable
recited when a Masai warrior falls in love.
It comes in the shape of love when you say
‘Ninakupenda’
Fati
I’ll sing you a song of happy tones
It shall be played on the stage of life’s endless drama.
Then, and only then
We would fade into a utopian universe
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Poem © Adamu Wazani Ijarafu
Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixabay