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By the Waters of Uchu: Poems by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

By the Waters of Uchu

As spirits jostle
In the mother market
Deep in the jungles of Nne-Nkwo
Eight mouths gift
The fountainhead of the lake
That laves stream and stock
In the land of the sacred.

Upon the rooted charm of amalgamation
Ikoro convokes confederal communion
As ordained by the log of memory
At the head of the waters.

Naked guru scores virgin moon
And pumpkin tendril firms the bond
To the votive feast of new yam
As vinculum with the ancestors.

The wellspring brims
That scours the goddess
And earth teems
By the waters of Uchu.

=================

Umuchu

The sun sets homeward
Down the vale of green bunting,
Gathering the fathers
By dint of the three hearths.

Upon guttural invocation,
An utterance beyond echo
The earth yields to bonding
In thrall to family.

Here is communion shore;
Unshod, I bound the cosmos
Supplicating in rapture
To the goddess of rendering.

=================

(c) Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry, Satan's Story, A Play of Ghosts and The Missing Link. A 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing nominee, he wrote the text for Scottish photographer Owen Logan's caricature of Michael Jackson's visit to Nigeria entitled Masquerade. He lives in Lagos and is married with children.

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