Masquerades at the Harvest Dance
…without guns and fanfare, except a crown
for the festival and a raffia skirt for fans…!
I think of the wide-eyed gaze of the masquerade
mocking what it sees.
I must admit, I’ve always liked
the power that comes from being behind the mask.
Tradition invented the festival,
and custom dictates the rules of the game.
Nature, the harvest granted in yam barns,–
I am inviting the world to see.
The harvest week is approaching
with crown for the peasant’s head and a mask for his armor.
The music a sonorous affirmation to the harvest God;
jubilations winged in triumphant flights of changing climate.
The noonday ghosts are everywhere in the streets.
A ghost, in multi-hued decorum, accosted me.
His fork-shaped wipe danced in my face.
“Yeah. You know am not scared.”
But the old choice of running,
enamored of fear, departed me
at the precise stroke of noon
the tropical sun ray hit Savannah’s anthills.
Clutching a jumble of raffia palm in my hands
I revisited the dance of blessed spirits, only now,
my naked face is racing the masquerades who, I figured,
knew me. In fact, they didn’t.
————–
Verdict of “Agwu” the Madman
A very rich man died the other day.
Does anyone know where he is now?
His benefactors say he’s gone to heaven
Because he was a paragon of kindness.
The poor might not understand it.
Yet, to the madman’s mind, —
Of deepest vistas than death’s eye,
His departure serves him right:
Material possession of all things
Will not find solace with the dead;
Just as the grave reasoned why in hell
Must death escape vitality?
The gravediggers were not amused
By the madman’s earnest rantings,
But they paid him no heed
As if by design, nature’s laugh is done.
Alas, the madman is not done:
“Is he going to sleep without these
Possessions which my dreams loathe?
Please tell this little stone that rambles
In the road alone, and doesn’t mind
About careers, nor feign to be prophetic,
Whose prophecy holds vision over this grave.
I’ll return when nature’s laugh is done.”
————–
Poems © Chris Chinwe Ulasi
Image: Aurica via Flickr