POETRY

Certain moods, occurrences, or activities
can trigger an inspiration within us,
a communion with others souls,
and we can see, feel, or touch what others experience.
Ideas begin to bustle in our heads,
and we are filled with a certain urge,
an urge to send a message,
to express a feeling or thought,
but it only lasts for a short while.
If we are able
to nourish this urge,
we are blessed with a feeling,
as if a creator,
our creation being poetry—
our gateway to each other.

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A GOSSIP

As the wind blows spreading air around,
gossips also chatter spreading slanderous news around.
Gossips—taking unconscious pleasure
in others’ misery.
But behind most gossips
is a troubled mind
hiding its own misery

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REFLECTIONS II

The concept of age
is a useless and distracting idea,
serving only to justify many wasted years
and to infect with forgetfulness,
until years later—too late perhaps—
the knowledge of one’s ever-present
and impending vulnerability
to the condition of one’s birth
as being chosen
to live to die or die to live,
which is saying the same thing.
With youth, we have an illusory power
over the end to come,
anticipated to be many years still.
Not surprising then that we are often
caught unaware,
for if it was left to us,
we would swim
in the delightful ocean of forgetfulness forever,
devaluing the importance of our time,
of the responsibility to make every moment count.

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LIFE

Life is a blessing
we are fortunate to journey through
for any length of time.
It is omnipresent,
yet very precious and rare.
This is why with full force a tree
blooms
and provides a floral extravaganza
in celebration of its new life,
with no regrets for a future state of seeming lifelessness,
for now it is lively and blessed.
What great lesson
can we learn,
celebrating our lives with constipated emotions
and fears about the future?
We lose the very essence of life
while searching for it!
Release,
go love, laugh, and live.
Think not of the coming winter,
for today, you have life.

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THE RAIN

I love it when it rains.
Each little droplet,
a tear from Mother Nature.
The wind tries to sway it,
pushing it south to west or whatever direction,
but the rain wins
by being anywhere it chooses to be,
in order to calm hearts,
to soothe pain,
to bring hope for the future.
Rain, rain,
Come to me.

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CHANGING TIMES

My time has passed.
I am dry, wrinkled, and withered,
my mirror tells me.
I smell like decaying something…
My joints complain about me.
My mind, bored and idle, wonders about my purpose,
my usefulness to it.

My teeth leave me.
My eyes do not want to see me.
My ears don’t want to hear my thoughts.
My nose doesn’t want to smell me—
it shuts down, I struggle to breathe,
I faint—my heart fails me.

My body—eyes, ears, all of it—awake
hopeful of a new something…
of new sights to see, new paths to follow,
or of being back to the time of dancing in the rain,
of complaining about the restrictions of youth,
of joyful cries of “Nnem, Nnem”—Mommy, mommy—
of swinging shakeres, singing lips, or dancing hips,
back to the time when the mouth spoke wisdom
and was respected,
back to the time of…
But then my body realizes it’s still just me: wrinkly and gray.
My heart receives a blow
and my body shuts down again.
Why is it no longer my time?

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FROM AFAR

From afar,
I see you, a world blooming with life and intelligence.
I journey to you
to integrate myself within you, to become a part of you,
to develop in you my premature gift,
knowledge, and abilities.

But upon my arrival,
you did not and could not
understand or accept my different appearance,
beliefs, and practices.
Nor could you comprehend
your loss in stunting my growth, my maturity
through the cruelty and injustice
you made me swallow.

You refuse to show me in the light,
for fear that I might generate some greatness.
Instead, you contrast me with you,
with me always being the darkness,
all for the purpose of showing me,
what you have made me,
as evidence of your superiority.

Behold the ignorance of a world
that claims unmatched greatness and intellect
in failing to realize the effects
of its action and attitudes towards me on it,
since I am a part of it;
we are one and the same.

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All Poems (c) Rosemary Esehagu