Joseph McNair

  

Editor's Note: This is the last installment of this novel that will appear in this magazine. The novel, O ?e ?ango, will available for sale through the Asili Press in early November. Watch the Asili home page for information on how to purchase the book. The writer wishes to thank all of you who helped make this book possible.

J.M.

 

The Way of the Òrìshàs   “O Death, take the other path, which is distinct from the way of the spirits…”                                                    Rig Veda When describing a spiritual adventure, it is tempting to reduce the entirety of the experience down to simple metaphors or processes – something that can be readily understood. The problem, though, is that such experiences are complex phenomena. If one does find a good metaphor, a good story may come of it, and something quite comprehensible, but not necessarily a good way of understanding how the whole thing works. Very few would understand the “whole” of the spiritual event that made its procession down the spider web-like network of undeveloped roads that led from the village of Àiyé to the seaport town of Orí. Very few might consider the procession odd – two mule drawn wagons, two men and four women dressed warmly against the changing elements traveling to the southern coast. But looks, as we all know, can be deceiving and this was no ordinary group of travelers. Seated on the left the driver of the first wagon, on a buckboard seat, was a tall, physically imposing woman of indeterminate age with unlined mahogany skin, bushy brown-black hair heavily streaked with gray-going-to-white and eyes that seemingly could see through stone. She was a handsome woman whose pleasant features were often offset by the intensity of her eyes. She wore the air of command like she wore her simple clothes, almost indifferently. And there was nothing about the other travelers that seemed at all subservient. This was Maggie/Eshu, the village healer and the leader of the group. She was the reason for the trip, or rather, her adopted son’s nuptials and his desire that she and the others attend.  But the wise woman served an even greater purpose. She was the embodiment of the Òrìshà Eshu Elegbara, Divine Messenger, the gatekeeper between the realms of human and divine, lord of the crossroads, owner of power, owner of paths, roads and doorways, and divine mediator of fate and information.  Having been awakened to her Òrìshà nature by her adopted son, the boy avatar Shango, and having her human identity merged with the Òrìshà Eshu, she came to understand her role in the larger scheme of things. Eshu is the pure energy of opportunity and Maggie/Eshu had come to understand that hers was the power that closes one door only to open another. As Eshu is the preparer for broader experience, she had to be a teacher, kind and severe.  As Eshu is the tester of strengths and weaknesses, she had a role to play in imposing on human and Òrìshà alike onerous tasks of decision-making, and provoking them to do the most with what they have.  In the brief moments of silence that occasionally fell on the travelers, Maggie/Eshu ruminated on the fact that she had done just about all she could do in her human body.  She was saddened by this insight in spite of herself. It’s not that I am afraid to die, she thought, taking in the scenery which past lazily by her from front to back as if the wagon was standing still – the oak and eucalyptus trees that stood along the dirt road like sentries with their arms interlocked denying penetration into their interiors. I have memories older than time. I know in the most profound way that death is an illusion.  It is this human part of me that needs constant reminding. But my short life on earth this time has been good, especially since Shango was born.  His birth not only gave my life purpose, but expanded that purpose beyond my wildest dreams. She thought then about her grandmother and the events of her childhood.  She relived in these moments her introduction to “the spirits” as a seven year old.  Her grandmother, also a village wise woman, had declared her “Abiku,” a child born to die, and true to form her early childhood was marked long episodes of sickness.  When her mother died, the wise woman took over her care and nurture. She proclaimed her ?m?r?, a child with a familiar spirit, when she sensed about the child her guardian spirit and when the young girl showed a talent for herbs and “dream walking.” The long hours spent remembering and reciting the old stories, learning the properties of herbs and accompanying her grandmother when she tended the sick and suffering came back to the wise woman in a rush. She remembered her ritual marriage to Eshu Elegbara at eleven, when the guardian spirit possessed her. She remembered how the idyllic period of her late childhood, adolescence and early adulthood ended abruptly when her father married her off to the son of the town butcher when she was twenty-two.  She remembered her abuse at his hands and in desperation calling on her guardian to help her end her torment. With his help, she worked the ceremony invoking the Òrìshà of sickness and disease and fled the town of her birth knowing that her husband was already dead. She remembered the years of wandering, moving from village to town, selling poultices and potions, herbs and remedies for love and health.  She remembered settling for a time in Orí, caring for indigent sick and helping the victims of the flux that broke out at the quarry. She smiled to herself. I was arrogant enough then to think I could heal anyone. But destiny nagged at her and soon to the dismay of those few who knew her in Orí she moved on settling for good in the village of Àiyé. Her mind flashed through the myriad of miracles that had happened in the thirty-odd years she had lived in the village.  She thought about the people, the ceremonies and initiations and the calling down of the Òrìshà. It was Àiyé that was calling me all along, she mused. Only in that place of power could things come to pass as they did.  Only to that place could Shango come. I am so much more than a simple mother of secrets now and extra-human duties pull at me.  I must be free to meddle.  The time draws near for Shango to face the Ajogún… On the right of the driver was a woman equally imposing as the village healer and almost as tall. But what imposed was the sheer power of her beauty. She was slender and graceful like a long-legged wading bird; her small, full, flawless breasts inflecting into a tiny waist that fanned into round, perfectly formed buttocks. Her skin was so black that purplish highlights danced like fireflies around her forehead and high cheekbones. On her long slender neck rested a perfectly proportioned head with hair cut short to its contours. Her eyes, wide and slanted, dominated her face. Their gold-flecked light-brown irises drew you in, held you, and induced what can only be described as the sweetest vertigo. Her wide African nose tilted up so that her fleshy lips could showcase her dazzling white impeccable teeth.  But more than any one feature, it was the total composition, the totality of her self-presentation, how she looked, how she smelled and the sound of her voice that stopped men and women cold. To look at her gave unrestrained pleasure to the senses. This was Ezzie/?shun, a healer, seeress, and one of the first of Maggie/Eshu’s initiates.  Ezzie/?shun had distinguished herself among Maggie/Eshu’s students as not only a healer but also a diviner and a seeress of great skill and accuracy.  She was sought out often in the village to advise on the course of all manner of human events.  Maggie/Eshu engaged her to teach the boy Shango to divine – or rather, as it turned out, to cause him remember that he was the greatest diviner among the Òrìshàs, who traded the divinatory tablets of Ifá for the gift of dance. She enticed him to read for her, a happenstance that subsequently caused her to awaken to her Òrìshà nature.  That process had an effect on Shango as well.  It almost destabilized the fragile mental balance of the boy, for although he was born aware of his Òrìshà nature; he had not yet completed the merging of his human identity with his Òrìshà identity, something that would have come naturally with his physical maturity. To complicate matters even further, he was hopelessly in love with his tutor, no doubt a carryover from past lives as her husband, and would have been lost in the throes of adolescent infatuation and past life entropy had Ezzie/?shun not literally saved him with a spontaneous, seductive kiss.  Such was the power of ?shun. As ?shun is the erotic power that causes atoms to bind into elements, gases into planets, males and females into parents, families into generations, Ezzie/?shun knew that power and could wield it instinctively. As ?shun is the power that draws the forces of expansion and contraction into creation, Ezzie/?shun knew that the essence of her power was to bind together couples, communities, societies, planets, and even galaxies. As ?shun causes the myriad blossoms to attract the bird and bee, to make the male member erect and the vagina sweat and swell, Ezzie/?shun had learned that hers was the power to cause all life forms to reproduce, to make the initiate yearn for spiritual fulfillment, to drive man and Òrìshà alike toward oneness with Olódùmaré.  The human part of her versed these past eight almost nine years in the memories of the Òrìshà had some mixed feelings about this upcoming marriage. Although she was in this incarnation senior to Shango by nearly twenty-five years, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be with him when he came into the fullness of his adulthood. I remember the day I kissed Shango like it was yesterday, she thought. He had just finished helping me to awaken to my Òrìshà nature, causing me to remember that I was ?shun, the spirit of the river. I was absorbed in those memories that came back to me like a flood, especially those lifetimes when he was with me; when we were lovers.  Shango was such a marvelous lover in those times; so bold, so inventive, so arrogant.  There was such a bond between us. I came closer to belonging to him than to any other even though I have known Ogun, ?rúnmìlà, Agayu, Erinl?, Oshosi and the luscious ?baluàiyé. When I came out of my reverie, I looked at that poor child, that thirteen year-old boy who a moment before seemed so powerful. Something about my awakening affected him. Suddenly, he was slumped helplessly into a constellation of strange repeated bodily movements, frequent grimacing, making strange facial expressions, and mumbling words mixed together in no coherent order – responses that were irrelevant and strange in the context of the conversation that were we having. I feared for his sanity and acted intuitively. I kissed him full on the mouth. I lost myself in the sweetness of his breath and tongue, remembering the kisses and caresses of old. He began to respond, not as the thirteen-year old child he was, but as my lover of a thousand lifetimes. It seemed as if my power to bind stabilized and completed the blending of his human identity and his Òrìshà nature.  He was a boy no longer… She even wondered if she could reconcile herself with his bride, whom she knew to be ?ya of the Winds and was her sworn enemy in lifetime after lifetime. If Shango can reconcile with Ogun, why can’t I resolve my differences with ?ya, she thought to herself.  She put these thoughts safely away fearing that Maggie/Eshu or Simon/Oshosi might sense them. The driver, a thickset muscular man of medium height, completed the threesome on the buckboard seat of the first wagon. He was a very dark, dusky brown, with seeming iron and manganese coloring splashed upon the protuberant parts of his face and body. A mysterious and seductive man whose girlishly pretty facial features stood out in sharp contrast to the steel in his rippling sinews, the calluses on his hands and the array of hunting and tracking weapons and gear he carried on his person.  This was Simon/Oshosi, hunter and tracker extraordinaire.  There was no trail he could not find and the ones he did find were always the shortest routes to the destination.  He made his living selling meat and skins to various village markets and was called upon often to help track and capture fugitive criminals and highwaymen who preyed on isolated villages and country roads. He never failed to bring in anyone whom he had set out to capture. It was rumored that he communicated with the birds of the air and the beasts of the forest.  There was, in fact, a palpable presence of wild beasts in proximity of the procession – not a threatening presence but a protective one. Simon/Oshosi had lived in the forest from the time the spirit of Tracker took his head. He had no use for people generally, and loved only a few, his brother Peter/?sanyin, his cousin Tom/Ogun and of course the community of believers who sang, danced and drummed on the new and full moon nights in the forest a league behind Maggie/Eshu’s house.  Maggie/Eshu had taught him, Tom/Ogun and Peter/?sanyin how to play the rhythms of the Òrìshà; taught them how to call them down. And of course, he loved the wise woman as if she were his very own mother. It was meet that it would be Maggie/Eshu who awakened him to Òrìshà consciousness, for the antipathy between Shango of old and Oshosi was great. But all went well on that night of Awakening and Shango and Oshosi were reconciled.  Since that time Simon became in tune with the fullness of the elemental power of his Òrìshà. As Oshosi is the outward thrust of power unencumbered by inertia. Simon/Oshosi’s power was that which is called upon to find the straight line to spiritual fulfillment.  As Oshosi is the power in human and Òrìshà alike to go forth like an aimed projectile, to collapse time, space and distance, Simon/Oshosi came to know his power as the centrifugal force that begins and maintains spiritual endeavor. As Oshosi is the straight and narrow way, the power that coheres us all in eternal oneness, Simon/Oshosi’s power is that which gives clarity and context to spiritual insight so that one might keep his or her feet firmly on the path.  Oshosi walks us all through fear and brings us out on the other side; takes us over obstacles and breaches barriers to journey’s end. The hunter searched the sky for the pair of young eagles that was his eyes in the air. Although he could see through their eyes when he shifted his consciousness, he wanted to see them. Soon he spotted the two dark-brown shapes with a spattering of white on their underwings and tail whirling through the air with talons locked together. Soon, my friends, he thought, I know the season is upon you. Just a little while longer.  They broke their embrace and screeched their reply. He sent his mind to the big bobcat tracking them, its grayish brown coat with its, numerous black streaks and dark bars on its forelegs and tail made it nearly invisible in the thick forest. Is all well, my sister, he thought. His keen ears picked up the soft rumble of the cat’s reply that confirmed the assurances that gently touched his mind. And ever present in his thoughts, a permanent resident, was the soft whispering voice of his familiar, the white-tailed deer that followed him wherever he went. Keeping his eyes trained on the road ahead and a firm grip on the reins, he wondered how his life would change? The boy needs my power. As the Spirit of Lightning, Shango is the great awakener. His is the energy of the Olódùmaré that awakens the spiritual potentials of humans and Òrìshà alike. He can do this by merely being present. But what he needs from me comes after the awakening.  When the new path is opened, when individual human identity is joined with the Òrìshà nature, the blended identity needs an inner urge or force that moves or prompts a person to stay the path and stay the course to spiritual fulfillment. I am that urge and I am that force.  As such, I must ever be near him, especially as his real work begins. I just hope I don’t have to leave the forest. I can’t abide living long among humans… Tom/Ogun, Àiyé’s master blacksmith, his masters, his journeymen and apprentices, specially made the two nondescript wagons for this trip.  Like their passengers, the wagons were much more than they seemed.  Their true beauty was in their construction.  Their outward sloping sides, with four upright standards set into the ends of the cross support timbers over the axle beds were an innovation rarely known to come out of a simple village like Àiyé.  But then, Àiyé was no simple village. Attached to these standards were distinctive slatted sides, which angled outwards and were easily removed providing numerous adaptations. The wagons were springless and had spoked wheels that were larger at the rear than in the front. The wagons which were made chiefly of oak, were constructed for transporting farm produce, and for human transport. It was a testimony to Tom/Ogun’s vision that these wagons would be also be used in the wedding ceremonies with Shango and Cassandra/?ya, his bride, arriving at the ceremony at the head of a procession of wagons decorated with red, white and lilac/maroon garlands. The first wagon was filled to overflow with produce, dry goods, clothes and articles needed by the travelers and presents for the bride and bridegroom. The second wagon carried the overflow. It was evident that the travelers had planned for an extended stay. The passengers in the second wagon were Emma/Aja, Mava/Yem?ja and the driver was Peter/?sanyin. Emma/Aja was the natural sister of Shango, the avatar of the new path and the bridegroom.  She was present at his difficult birth. She saw Maggie/Eshu cut him from her dead mother’s womb and spent almost ten years caring for him as she learned her herbalist trade from the village healer.  She was a comely red bone woman with freckles who grew more attractive by the year. She had inherited a significant amount of Maggie/Eshu’s practice, specializing in midwifery and women who had problems conceiving.  She also tended ailing animals and like Simon/Oshosi, later discovered she had the ability to talk with them. She often accompanied and assisted Peter/?sanyin who took over the bulk of Maggie/Eshu’s practice.  She had been inexplicably drawn to the funny-looking albino-like healer, smitten, as it were, from the time she first met him and did not know why, that is, until she was awakened and became one with her Òrìshà nature eight and a half years before.  Then she knew that she had in countless lifetimes been his handmaiden and consort. Nothing could have kept her away from her brother’s wedding.  In fact, she had made a vow to reconcile Shango with his ailing father who had disowned him at birth, blaming him for his mother’s death. As Aja’s power was to extract healing properties from the efficacies of forest plants, Emma/Aja came to understand her power to not only facilitate physical healing but to extract from inner space and the layers which clothe the precious essence of our innermost spirit the power to disperse illusion. As Aja’s power is to cause the self to withdraw into the profound darkness, to stumble in the dark, to sojourn through spiritual catharsis and emergency until it glimpsed the appearance, however fragmentary, of a new possibility – a flickering light which draws us towards its promise of change, Emma/Aja came to understand her power as that which nurtures spiritual insight; forms and sustains the image of oneness. Every bird, every beast of the field and forest are gatekeepers on the manifold paths to oneness with Olódùmaré. They are the keepers of spiritual truths and the embodiments of principles that sustain or debilitate. And I have remembered their speech. I hear Simon’s eagles and his bobcat – even the deer that is his familiar. I hear their thoughts.  I know that we are well protected. That was the greatest gift of my awakening.  On that blessed night, all Shango had to do to me was to look lovingly into my eyes and whisper, “remember, remember who you are and what you know!” Suddenly I felt like I had been struck by lightning. A burning sensation began to rise up my spine and soon broke through a point of resistance behind my eyebrows. I began to get occasional glimpses of what I just knew to be the Divine and enjoyed for an instant an inner stability, contentment and equanimity based on direct knowing and experience. I felt that all aspects of personality, ego and mind are subdued in service to a higher reality. There was a shift in my understanding to openness, perceptiveness, awareness and direct knowing.  I won easy access to my inner space and could sink into it at will.  It was then I became aware of the presence of the Òrìshà Aja and the process of blending began… I remembered the time when I was looking after my brother, watching him play with the squirrels and rabbits in the forest behind Maggie/Eshu’s house. I thought it would be cute to pretend I could talk to the animals and they in return, talked to me. One day I called out casually to a squirrel close to Shango: “Hello Mr. Squirrel.  Will you share your nuts with us? We are hungry.  What’s that?  You won’t share them? How rude! Go your way then.” I jumped at the squirrel and he fled up a tree. I turned back to Shango chuckling. But my brother asked. “Why did you scare him away like that, Emma?” I replied “You saw for yourself, Shango, that he was greedy and didn’t want to share his silly ole nuts with us!” I thought I could brush the question off and divert his attention to something else, but the boy was adamant. “No he wasn’t, Emma.” He insisted.  The boy’s eyes, nose and mouth aligned into a stellium of defiance and disapproval.  “He was annoyed with you,” said Shango. “He was trying to tell you that if you asked politely and in the language of squirrels, he would be most happy to share.  He called you Aja.  To me he said: “When Aja remembers how to speak to us again, she can have all of the nuts she wants.” He knew I was Aja when he was five years old, she thought.  He was talking to animals even then. She smiled tuning into the raucous sex play and the prurient mental chatter of the eagles above. Well, I can certainly hear their thought/speech now.   She looked over to the driver. I wonder, she thought, if Peter/?sanyin pays much attention to that power that makes ordinary, everyday things desirable, animates them with passion and fills them with an almost sacred meaning? Surely he must know how much I care for him… Mava/Yem?ja, the other passenger in the second wagon, was the only one of Maggie/Eshu’s original initiates who was actually older than the village healer.  Over the years, she transformed from an overweight, reticent victim into a vivaciously vibrant caregiver known for her wit, her wisdom, her good works and her willingness to help in anyone who needed help. While in truth, she was Maggie/Eshu’s first apprentice healer, she maintained her primary vocation as a domestic but stayed close to her as a friend, student and occasional companion, especially since her husband of many years died a few years back.  Mava/Yem?ja had probably been the most damaged of Maggie/Eshu’s initiates.  As a child, she suffered from the forced sexual attentions of her natural father. The gift of her awakening even more than memories, powers and awareness of her union with the “Mother of fishes” brought self-forgiveness to a child who accused herself of being seductive; brought the realization that her natural needs for love, attention and acceptance were healthy; that she paid a terribly high price to get those needs met – but she did not seduce her abuser. When Yem?ja took her head, the Òrìshà made her confront her guilt and fear As Yem?ja is the energy that moves one inward toward deeper, wider dimensions of self, Mava/Yem?ja found the power to face and step through her guilt of being her father’s temptress; that somehow her abuse at his hands was her fault.  As Yem?ja is the power that moves us backward into our personal past and breaches the barrier into the eternal now, Mava/Yem?ja was able to see that her complicity in her own molestation was that of a child trying to obey her father.  As Yem?ja is the abrupt, invisible electric force that mediates between the dynamic play of opposites, resolving, synthesizing, vitalizing and nurturing the stuff of spirit, Mava/Yem?ja came to understand her power to heal and forgive herself. As Yem?ja reflects that which mediates between male and female energy in conflict with each other and in each other, Mava/Yem?ja came to understand that hers was the power to penetrate to the source of her own unfathomable sexuality and understand that there are truly no opposites, just different ways of looking at and experiencing the same phenomena. I made a promise to that boy, she thought, as we all did when he left Àiyé, that should he need anything of me, it was his without the asking. What can I give him? I can only give him that which I have been given – and what a gift that is. I who was bereft of self-love and so full of self-loathing know myself to be the embodiment of the mystery of transition, the secrets of nurturing, the power to create, the strength to transform, and the wisdom to heal. I am the precious dark, the wet, the moist and the mysterious.  I own all of the feminine paths. I am the daughter-within-the-mother, the wife and homemaker, the mother-within-the-daughter, gatherer, maker of ritual, teacher, and wise woman and all of the ways in between. I nurture and hold the light for those who weave the web of life and spin the thread of fate. I am that energy which makes the negative move; that opens the darkness. This a frightening power to those easily intimidated by the feminine.?rúnmìlà was the only one among the Òrìshàs who dared to try to appease me when I was angry. He had divined in a dream that if he dared approach me when I had given in to anger he should go to the ocean shore and offer sacrifice. He did so and I was pleased with his offering. I called a great wind to whip the ocean into mountainous waves. I gathered my spirit up into a wave so huge that it blotted out the sky and sun.  I rose to full height in front of him.  I believe he was afraid that he would be swept away. But instead of sweeping him away, I hovered directly over his head for a time and then sank gently to the shore at his feet. My point made, I drew back my waters leaving before his feet mounds of pearls and precious stones. Shango will need me around him. Now that my loving husband has passed on, I can devote all of my time to this work.  It is a pity that he wasn’t awakened.  The spirits know, that no one could have loved me more than he.  My power is needed to suffuse the physical spaces where Shango’s great work takes him.  The new path will level the playing field among genders and thus will those who respect the feminine be rewarded. Well, she thought, with her newfound self-effacing humor, at least he will need me at his wedding. Someone needs to organize the thing, and the spirits only know for what else… Peter/?sanyin, the driver of the second wagon, was the most gifted healer Maggie/Eshu had ever trained.  Even she admitted that he credited her for much more teaching than she deserved for the very plants, herbs and trees talked to him, rendered their secrets lovingly, willingly. Peter/?sanyin had that effect on people as well.  In spite of his daunting appearance, his very pale, translucent skin, his nearly white hair and eyes, his long, wiry frame covered in clothes that betrayed no fashion sense, Peter/?sanyin had a playful spirit that could put you immediately at your ease.  People found themselves telling the herbalist things that they never meant to say.  He, in turn, wove these revelations into spells that affected more appropriate cures.  Sometimes, the healing had happened before he administered the herbs. Of all of the first Awakened, Peter/?sanyin was the closest to Shango.  This was quite ironic because after Ogun, ?sanyin had the most animus toward the Spirit of Lightning. Shango together with ?ya had in innumerable past lives, maimed and crippled him and robbed him of an arm, a leg, an eye and ear.  In this life, his youthful spirit made him as much a playmate as a tutor to the young avatar. He was a remarkable teacher who turned learning into a game that he played with as much enthusiasm and competitiveness as Shango.  When he was awakened by Shango, he “remembered” that he had dominion over the entire plant kingdom, the whole of plant pharmacopoeia and the secrets to use them.  He was not only the owner of all prepared medicines, but magical potions and talismanic magic as well.  His was the gift of Ashai [sorcery] and he was humbled by the responsibility. As the power of ?sanyin conditions the physical, mental and spiritual bodies to repel and repudiate dis-ease, Peter/?sanyin came to understand that his was the power that brings about wholeness, balance and alignment within the Great Mystery. ?sanyin’s sorcery reveals the spark of divine consciousness embedded in human essence whose ultimate potentiality is realized when it remembers that it is already apart of Olódùmaré and the appearance of separateness is illusory! How fun it is to play in that illusion, to use it as a means of experiencing who I am without accepting it as reality. I know now that Olódùmaré is all there is and humans and Òrìshà and everything else are all one. I can see the imbalances. I know that anyone can be healed of anything if he or she wishes it so, that there is a connection between one's consciousness and one's behavior that enables a correct attitude towards living to ward off sickness and dis-ease. There is a connection between one’s feelings, emotions and physical body—the first steps of a soul journey – where the mind becomes so absorbed in and focused on a dominant idea that the nervous system is cut off from the senses. This is replaced by overwhelming feelings of awe, anxiety, joy, sadness, fear, astonishment, passion, or any combination of intense emotion flooding the inner spaces.  When the flood subsides, there comes understanding. This soul journey is a gradual progression from ordinary consciousness to deeper levels of concentration, from slight detachment to a total removal of one's inhibitions. One can even learn to control one's own body temperature, heart rate, blood flow, and digestion, experience vivid imagery, events from their past, even past lives, or utter relaxation. The flotsam and jetsam of physical, emotional, and spiritual crisis wash up, are examined and mitigated.  This is the resident sorcery in each of us that can be awakened by the magic I bring. Shango, by his very presence, can awaken the Òrìshà nature slumbering in all human beings and start the process of blending those elemental forces into the aware human identity. I, on the other hand, can send forth my spirit and make that awakening ecstatic, healing the wounded spirit, giving lucid dreams, glimpses of the future and healing the body. Where Shango goes, there I must go also. Àiyé was our cradle, the place where we were all shaped and formed; where we developed. But in Orí, led by Shango, Olódùmaré will be “seen” by all who behold us, and those who “see” will in turn be “seen” by the Great Mystery; will awaken on a new path and find themselves to be channels of grace. He smiled to himself. I can’t wait to get started. Simon/Oshosi had marked an excellent route to Orí. He had made the trip several times on foot and had even accompanied Shango on his move from Àiyé, the village, to the seaport town.  Even at their leisurely pace, they would reach Orí in less than two days. Their conversations were light in contrast to their weighty reflections and largely confined to their wagons.  Maggie/Eshu and Ezzie/?shun gave in to their human nature and traded gossip from the village. Simon/Oshosi, intent on the road and its possible dangers, was oblivious to their chatter. In the second wagon, in sharp contrast, Peter/?sanyin kept Mava/Yem?ja and Emma/Aja in stitches with his funny stories about the unusual predicaments his house calls often got him into. They spent the night of the first day off the road in a secluded clearing near a running stream. Their route had taken them through forests of shortleaf pine, cypress and oak frequently covered by greybeard moss. The clearing in which they now rested was shielded around its perimeter with oak and fragrant magnolia trees, but one could almost feel the change in the lay of the land to cypress the closer they got to Orí. Within the clearing there was an abundance of azaleas of every color, red and speckled camellias, yellow lady slipper orchids and delicate white water lilies growing in the stream. The travelers remarked among themselves about the palpable presence of animals in the woodlands. There were many deer sightings and more than one of them thought that they had seen a bobcat.  For the most part, the travelers marveled at the seeming tameness of the mink, raccoons, opossums, and the occasional skunk which would walk up to them to be petted. Simon/Oshosi caught several sunfish for their evening meal (the women couldn’t bear the thought of eating the friendly creatures) while Mava/Yem?ja and Emma/Aja prepared dishes of corn and beans from the staples they carried.  They ate well and until they were full. Maggie/Eshu called them together around the cooking fire to address them. The calls of the wild ducks and geese filled the evening air. “My friends,” the wise woman began, “Simon/Oshosi tells me that we will reach Orí before noon tomorrow. My son has communicated to me that we will all be handsomely accommodated when we arrive.” She allowed the whispers of anticipation to die down before she continued.  “I think we all suspect if we don’t already know the import of this trip; that it is much more important than the event of my son’s wedding.” Her voice took on the aspect of Eshu Elegbara, the Divine Messenger, the first among Òrìshà, who operated outside of the boundaries of law. “My time in this body is not long. This does not disturb me nor should it you because all of us here know that there is no death nor can there ever truly be a severing of the connection we now have. “ She again waited for the murmurings to die down.  She continued softly in a voice hardly audible above the crackle of the campfire. “My intention was to walk this incarnation long enough to see my son grown up, married, and to see him begin the great work for which he came.  These events are about to unfold and I am truly happy. Just as I am happy to have known each of you who are likewise my children.”  She looked at Mava/Yem?ja and smiled.  “Yes, even you Mava/Yem?ja, even though you are older than I in this incarnation.  But make no mistake; it is Shango’s work that has brought us here to play a role a series of extraordinary events. “Truly his task is to raise the vibratory rate of humans so that they are able to merge with their Òrìshà nature and after doing so to ascend through opening their hearts, and remembering their connection to Olódùmaré. It is about clearing debris from the illusions of old lives, from this life and from future lives.  “To do this, he needs all of us in full command of our Òrìshà nature. I will not be returning to my home in Àiyé.  As the one in the four hundred and one Òrìshà I will stay here with my son to do as he bids, to do as Olódùmaré bids.  That choice also remains for each of you to make. “Every one of us is different and we all have choices. Like the colors in the visual spectrum we are all aspects of Olódùmaré. We exist here on earth expressing our different aspects and energies. We each strive on a daily basis to enhance our time here on earth. I have taught you through dance and song, through the healings and through the drums the way in which our individual strengths are expounded upon enabling us to express our different attitudes in harmony with one another. “My son has come to take us all to another level of experience.  When each of you awakened, your abilities to do this were enhanced. There was nothing more to teach you about who you are.  All of that is in your memories. Think of the joy you have experienced since the time of your awakening “Think now about the joy of being one with Olódùmaré; think again about the all-encompassing experience of love that comes from blended identity. There can only be joy, and when you realize this, the searching and self-examination ends and the love begins. The new journey and the new pathway of service will reveal itself; the road to joy has been opened.  Shango cannot do this alone.  “That is why we are here. By our very presence the vibratory rate of the town and the outlying regions will be raised and at the appointed time we will collectively release our powers into the world raising the vibratory rate of the planet and coloring that vibration with our self-conscious essences.  “We will help to create and sustain the conditions by which human and Òrìshà will walk the true path, a path that inevitably leads to oneness with Olódùmaré. The true path is the service we provide to ourselves. The journey we choose will inevitably end in the same place. “The service we do for ourselves is fully merging the human identity with the Òrìshà nature, this is when we shine brightest and in our fullest glory; it is playing exquisitely in the illusions we created for ourselves in order to know who we truly are.” *** Cassandra/?ya had been a blur of activity since agreeing to get the new house ready for occupation, not only for Shango and herself as the new owners but also to house and entertain the retinue traveling from the village of Àiyé for the wedding.  She truly was the Spirit of the Wind, supervising the cleaning, dusting and minor repairs (the house was in remarkably good shape), buying furniture, stocking its stores and hiring domestic help. It was a large house, a two story red brick town house on the opposite side of the square, kitty-cornered from the Shango's workshop. There were ten large rooms on the first and second floors and space for at least three sleeping rooms or private offices in the attic. The house’s double-pitched roof with its steep lower slope was in good condition, as were its three dormers, visible from the front. Cassandra/?ya called in carpenters and craftsmen to check the roof sheathing for proper venting to prevent moisture condensation and water penetration and to insure that materials were free from insect infestation. They only had to make a few repairs to the roofing material to guard against wind damage and moisture penetration. On the ground floor they made significant repairs to the entrance. They reinforced and repainted the portico, refinished and polished the iron Corinthian columns crested by a decorative top border of wrought iron that supported the portico. They had to replace several of the marble steps leading to the paired entry doors, which had stained glass windows in top half of each.  The doors were in good condition as were the three-sided bay windows with dressed stones at each corner of building that flanked the portico. The trio of three-sided bay windows on the second floor, viewed from the front, was equally in good repair as were the bay windows on each side of the house on each floor. Cassandra/?ya herself took charge of the interior work.  She took the open letter of credit supplied by Alafiya and hired first an experienced skilled cook named Bisi, a plump brown-skinned woman in her forties with impeccable references.  Bisi was recommended by, Rita, Bebe Alafiya’s head housekeeper. “She’s a superb cook and available,” the housekeeper told her.  “She knows everyone in our line of work and she won’t be around long. You’d do well to snatch her up quickly.” When Bisi in her interview let Cassandra/?ya know that she was versatile in all matters of domestic work, Cassandra/?ya enlisted her help in recruiting and hiring the best help available.  In short order, when word got out that Beano Idowu’s daughter was soon to be married and was hiring for her new house, Cassandra/?ya filled the positions of housekeeper, head house-maid, as well as kitchen-maid, scullery-maid, and laundress within a day.  With this “army” of domestics she took on the task of making the house ready. They mopped, scrubbed, dusted, cleaned, touch-up painted and polished their way through the whole house, she with her head tied up along side with her new help.  They started in the hallway on the ground floor with its thirteen-foot ceilings and uninterrupted space through to the back door, except for the stairway to the second floor and the attic with its double bullnose design with two ornate volutes. The stairway was carved from solid black oak, embellished in brass and set out from the right (north) hallway wall behind the entryway that opened into the parlor. The first step above the ground floor was wider than the other steps and rounded. This rounded portion of the step was called a “bullnose”. The pickets typically form a semi-circle around the circumference of the bullnose and the handrail has a horizontal spiral called a “volute”. The “bullnose” design allowed the pickets to form a wider, more stable base for the end of the handrail. It was truly beautiful. There were three large bedrooms and one small bedroom off the hallway to the left (south).  At the end of the hallway, on the right was the rear door to the kitchen. The women mopped and waxed the floors and placed new throw rugs along its length. It was appointed with a sideboard made of cherry, walnut and maple, a walnut hunt board and a press made of poplar and walnut. A cherry sofa behind the stairway was the final piece in the hallway. They polished each piece of furniture so that it glowed like healthy skin. The first room off the hallway on the ground floor as one enters the house to the right was the parlor, which served as a throughway to the large dining room. Old delicately turned porcelain vases graced the mantle and immediately caught the eyes when one entered the spacious parlor. There were two marble-top pier tables on either side of the door into the dining room.  There were petticoat mirrors that not only allowed women to check the condition of their petticoats but also served to expand the light in room. There were lustres and crystals on light fixtures, and a large mirror on the mantle between the vases.  On the black oak floor was a large plush carpet, with a single-sided, hand-painted floral design, which brightened a room dominated for the most part by dark hardwood furniture. The center table was also marble-topped with white marble and around it was a beautiful parlor set consisting of an upholstered settee and two matching chairs with needlepoint coverings on the deep burgundy fabric. Rounding out the furniture in the parlor were two matching solid hardwood armchairs with gracefully carved arms and legs. The women scrubbed and waxed the floors bring them to a high shine. They dusted and polished the furniture. They changed the window treatments, draping the bay windows in bright colorful tapestries of linen and raw silk that let in an abundance of light. The dining room took up about a quarter of the ground floor’s floor plan. Dominating the dining room was a large, pedestal-based black oak table that with its three additional leaves extended to sixteen hand spans. The dining table had a highly polished top, which was sufficiently ornamental to be left without a cover when not in use. There were eight brass inlayed carved black oak dining chairs, two of them arm chairs, with saber legs, the front ones curving forwards and the back ones backwards. The chair-backs had a concave top-rail attached to verticals. The floor of the dining room was also of black oak, as were the walls and ceilings.  The walls and ceilings, though, were inlaid with dividing bands of lighter oak. The lighting was accomplished in the daytime by the bay window, which brought in light from the rear of the house directly onto the table and another on the opposite side of the room from the front of the house. In the evening, a magnificent chandelier, perhaps the most ostentatious piece in the house, lit up the room. It was a vision in wrought and embossed iron and brass, applied with faceted colored crystal cabochon and candleholders in spiral brass. Around the room strategically placed on occasional tables, the mantle and the sideboards were several beautiful solid brass “pusher” candle holders which pushed the candle up as it burned down, so as not to waste any part of the precious candle! The rear bay window had its upper parts made of ruby and amber stained glass, and was hung with creamy white velour curtains, lined with light yellowish silk. Built into it was a box seat covered with brown leather and stacked with pillows. The sideboard was made of elaborately carved black oak, inlaid with white wood and ebony. The rails at the top are of brass, and the different sections are ornamented with brass dragons' heads, holding rings in their mouths. The mantel, the twin of the one on the north wall of the parlor, and parallel to it on the dining room’s north wall, was made of the same wood and had cream-colored tiles around the fireplace. The occasional chairs were made of oak with brown leather seats, and a screen of brown leather with scroll designs of red, green and gold in relief. A door off the south wall of dining room opened into the plain but very functional kitchen. In this room was a range, a large iron structure with an oven and several top burners all set in brickwork engineered with flues with a hot water reservoir and could be fueled with wood or coal. There was a very unusual twenty tin pie safe with perforated tin doors that kept mice and insects away from freshly baked goods. There was also a large work table; a dresser or step-back cupboard with shelves for plates and cups and drawers for cutlery and kitchen linens; a sink of iron, soapstone, or granite set in a wooden dry sink; and a kitchen clock, needed to time cookery. Water was conveyed to the interior sink pumps by pipes. Off the kitchen was a mudroom that opened in the back from which people could come in and have use of a full bathroom for clean up. The women completed the work on the ground floor minus the bedrooms in three full days, with a portion of that time used to clean and furnish the attic where Cassandra/?ya had determined that her domestic would stay. She hated the idea of servant quarters and hoped that her new employees would be like the ones that helped raise her – like family.  Bisi would have the small bedroom at the rear of the hall across from the kitchen on the first floor.  The women were delighted with their quarters. The space in the attic was big enough for each woman to have a bed, chest of drawers and a simple single door wardrobe made of poplar. Behind the single paneled door was a very large storage compartment with three shelves. Cassandra/?ya ordered leather screens for each of them for their privacy.  Alafiya had had bathroom facilities installed long before in the space but had never completed closing off the rooms. The dormitory-like open space allowed for a much more efficient use of space. The women would share a common bathroom. There was also a rear entrance to the attic from an outside stairway along the back of the townhouse. On the fourth day, attention was placed on the downstairs bedrooms, especially the three large ones off the hallway. The first room was to be Maggie/Eshu’s room, a large corner room with two bay windows, one from the front and one on the side corner. Cassandra/?ya knew without being told that the wise woman would live with them; that she would not return to the village. The room was sparsely furnished with maple bed with a mattress tucked with feathers against the inner wall dividing the room from the hall.  There was a maple press – a piece of serving furniture often found in a dining room – constructed with two drawers, flush with two cupboard doors and adorned with a shaped splashboard at the top and at the back.  Cassandra/?ya had added two small maple worktables to serve as night stands to go with an old maple day bed with one raised, pillow like end at the foot of the maple bed and a pair of square backed occasional maple chairs with fluted splats, upholstered seats and square tapering legs. Across from the day bed was a three-back settee with scrolled arms and lion's-paw feet positioned under the first bay window on the side of the house. On the wall dividing the room from the bath wing was a large double door wardrobe. The room had a bath wing with a copper tub, a washstand stand, a wooden cabinet, structure accommodating a large basin, a pitcher, a toothbrush jar, and various other toilet accessories, including one or more chamber pots housed in cupboards at the base of the structure. As Cassandra/?ya scrubbed the walls and floor in her future mother-in-law’s room, she let her memories loose, especially those that had to do with Eshu. I remember going to Eshu’s house. Shango sent me there to pick up some medicine that the old one had prepared for him. I knew Shango, knew his insatiable desire for more and more power and suspected that this medicine was really powerful magic. I brought with me a large goat and Eshu was pleased with the offering. He looked at me curiously. There was a glint of mischief in his eye.  I wondered if he was going to try to seduce me. I should have been even more on my guard, but he disarmed me by inviting me in and then complementing me on my grace and beauty. He brought the medicine wrapped in a leaf and said: “Be very careful, Spirit of the Winds; this is powerful medicine. Make certain your husband Shango receives it all.” On the way home, I couldn’t help myself. Why should Shango hoard all of the powerful magic for himself alone? I thought. Am I not as strong a worker in magic as he? I unwrapped the leaf to look at the medicine. Surely there was no harm in looking.  It was a red powder. I sniffed it. It had no smell. I tasted it with the tip of my tongue.  It had no taste. Disappointed, I re-wrapped the powder and took it to Shango. He asked me if Eshu had given me any instructions about its use. I was about to tell him that Eshu had given no instructions other than tell me to give him all of the medicine when a huge gout of flame shot forth from my mouth and singed his hair and beard.  He knew, then, that I had betrayed him and in his anger tried to kill me with his thunderstones. I fled from him, hiding among the sheep. In my head I heard Eshu’s terrible mocking laughter.  He had known all along what I would do… Another memory came… Shortly after ?shun had enticed the secrets of cowrie shell divination from ?rúnmìlà, she taught them to Yem?ja and I. The three of us became so full of ourselves that we thought we were the greatest diviners in all of creation.  We persuaded Eshu to advertise and promote our new enterprise. He agreed only after we agreed to give him a fourth of our earnings.  We bought a house together near the seashore to be the locus of our work. There we intended to discover and declare, to portend and prophesy – and get rich in the process.  Eshu was good to his word and put the word out as only he can.  Soon the lines of seekers and supplicants wanting to communicate with the spirits were endless.  Business boomed. At the end of each day, Eshu would come to the house and collect his percentage. After three months of this, I broke my silence; my indignant spirit cast off its robes of politeness. “We are paying Eshu too much, “ I said. “We are doing all the work. Why should he get an equal share? We don’t need him! Our reputation precedes us!” And so we agreed to cheat Eshu out of his share. When he came to collect his portion on the next evening, we told him that business had been poor and the little we had to give him was all that we could afford.  We kept this up for over a week, finally giving him nothing at all.  He said he understood and would not bother us again. In two days our business had dried up. No one came to hear what the cowrie shells had to tell. After a few weeks of this we came to the painfully obvious conclusion that it was Eshu who brought the business to us and it was Eshu who had taken it away. “I’ll go and beg him to come back,” I said, guilty about my role in the matter. “Perhaps I can seduce him and make him change his mind,” offered ?shun brightly. “We all agreed to treat him unfairly and since I am the eldest, the responsibility is mine,” Yem?ja replied. Yem?ja set out to find Eshu.  When she did she brought him back to the house.  Speaking for all of us she exclaimed: “We have wronged you, spirit of the crossroads,” said Yem?ja. “We have cheated you out of your fair share of the earnings from our business. I propose we make amends by making sure that your percentage is taken first and given to you if you would just steer the business back our way.  Further, I will make sure that among us, you will always eat first and that your needs and desires will be attended to first. You will be first among us.” Eshu looked at each one of us long and hard. When his eyes met mine, I could see that he knew it was I. His eyes laughed at me out loud. “So be it,” he said…” All of my encounters with Eshu seem to take on the same character, she thought. I think he enjoys laughing at me. I wonder what he will be like as a mother-in-law?  She chuckled at the anomaly. Old lecherous Eshu Elegbara, who would bare his penis without provocation, walking around in a woman’s skin; and the mother of my betrothed.  That is, perhaps, the greatest jest of all.   Well, she thought, enough of this.  There is still a lot of house to clean and get ready, the second floor bedrooms and particularly the master. As she scrubbed the walls and floor along side her new domestic staff, the words to an ancient Yorùbá prayer floated up from her memories:    Eshu, do not undo me,     Do not falsify the words of my mouth     Do not misguide the movements of my feet.     You who translate yesterday's words     Into novel utterances,     Do not undo me…

 

Three Kwansabas for Richard Wright

Richard Nathaniel Wright, praise the hoary muses,
wrote himself Bigger than life & tenant
farming -- paying shares of crop for rent.
instead he farmed his mind’s fertile patch –
sowed a crop of flawed first actors
big with rage to fulfill racist augur –
& reaped virile totems of the absurd.

Native son and black boy – Bigger “sounds
like nigger” Thomas, less than a hero,
ferally slays a white woman, his Mary,
to advance goals flawed, tragic.  Hapless Richard,
less than a villain, burns down his
Daddy’s house; strangles his cat to make
meaning in an insane world – to exist.

Richard Wright wrote heroic worth and virtue
into storied black figures of primary focus;
figures framed heinous or full of failings
& into odious percept by white guilt –
not unlike the bigoted judging falling like
shadow on the lives of the African.
Richard Wright, beloved muse, Spirit of Iron.

 

 

CROSSING THE NIGER

The taxi, its nature true
To all beasts of burden and
Conveyance however long of

Leg and wind requires a break
In a protracted journey.

The carburetor cough, the
ragged revving of acceleration,
like the belabored breathing

of an exhausted runner, telltales
the need for rest.

Its driver and passengers (me
Among them) too are travelweary;
Show the collective strain of

An unrelenting sprint, a random
Obstacle course of gaping pot-

Holes, figure-eighting oncoming
Maniac-driven vehicles which
Thread needle-eyed openings

Between to and fro traffic;
Have held for hours the unison

Leftward oblique of anxious body
Posture, bodies leaning, eyes
Straining to see around go-slowing

Lorries, rightward leftward curves to
See over the hills and through

Every manner of blindspot.
Seven psychic pairs of hands to aid
The steering; seven extra pairs of

Eyes for the driver who seems
Compelled by some demon to

Overtake anything ahead on frantic faith;
To devour vast stretches
Of road at the speed of lunacy.

II

We pull into the reststop at
Lokoja, at the foot of the bridge
Across the Niger.

My travel companions disembark,
And disappear into the raggedly

Rugged array of scrapwood and
Zinc-roofed restaurants; settle
Heavily in front of plate of

Rice and beans, eba and egusi
Soup, pounded yam and bushmeat.

The air is pungent with palm oil.
I override my urge for food
And drink and cast my eyes upon

The river. I am drawn by its
Languid motion and am compelled

Down a footpath around and
Behind the restaurant…

“Oga wetin? Eat, now!”
The driver, watching
Me, calls.

“I’m coming,” I say.
“Kilonse e? Were Oyinbo!”

I walk a walk of vague purpose
along the banks of this ancient river
thinking of all the rivers I’ve crossed

in the blur of a lifetime crammed full
of viscid, colloidal moments

where discreet but disruptive growing pains are dispersed
within a continuous medium in a manner that prevents them
from being filtered easily or settled rapidly.

There is always one more river, no
Matter how deep or wide the last.

I respect all rivers; become involved
On planes personal with those I touch
Physically. Each private mountain

Scaled has had its companion river.
And rivers, like oceans seem to suck

All of my personal water out of me,
Leaving me vampire-drained, obversely inebriated,
psychically disoriented, and

Hopelessly addicated to
Large bodies of water.

Knowing the consequences I seek
Out of place to sit, and find one on a
Mossy finger of rock,

Bent at the knuckle, exploring the
Sensuous wet riverine depths.

Removing my shoes, and rolling
Up my trousers, I sit myself

Down, my feet submerged in the
Swirling eddies of red and gold.

Giving myself over to its wet,
Noisy kisses, oblivious of the

Sinister suck at my toes, ankles,
And calves, the steady seepage

Of feeling out through the
Walls of my skin at points of
Contact, I am reeling…

III

Wet dreams. Selfwaters merge
With godwaters dissolves time
Dissolve the walls door and

Windows between one hundred
And thirty one days seven
Thousand eight hundred and sixty
Hours four hundred seventy
One thousand six hundred
Seconds

Such a swift temporal blink so
Complete a transformation the

Boy the youth the man merely
Characters encountered when
I dream there is no one outside

To confirm their existence make
Flesh their reflections breathe

Into them ... there was one once
(who was she?)… naked as a
man with a few clothes can be …

Skillstalentstabilities without
Reference less revered applies

To uses not intended (by whom?
By me/i/I?) … living an unctuous
Obsequious poem singing
Rhyming

Clowning for rapt audiences
Of children laughing Bose
Querulous Olukemi precocious
Wale

Sullen Mansa stubborn Yewande
Other (where are their names?)

Amusing them/myself while
Mothers market fathers work me
Earning a now and then meal a
Bottle of beer

A lift into town or a word to a
Friend who knows someone who
Has a brother in the ministry
At the television house whose
Legs are long who is family firm

Sure things relax take it easy…

Lectures in the beer parlors
(is that me taking?) pounding
home the vagaries of America

many-headed hydra of racism
reaganomics realpolitik ruthless

rushream of cashflow dirty
collared hucksters prokbarrel
perverts haut haughty heterphobes…

masking desperation in beer
life of the parlor Big Joe

(small Joe?) must be a professor
from who knows where
University truth wrapped in
Fraud…

Playing postman carrying my
Curriculum vitae twenty-five

Copies for Unilag thirty copies
For Unibadan forty for Unife
Traveling to Iwo Ilesa Ijebu Ode
Ekpoma clerk loses fifty copies
Of C.V. at Ilesa finds it for five
Naria

Dash to Ile Ife dean keeps me
Waiting three hours queries my
Credentials degrees never heard

Of my secondary school, it’s not
In Nigeria sir of I see why did

You come to Nigeria you
Weren’t

Recuited aren’t you too young
To be a principle perfect for

Ibadan but well you see we want
A Ph.D although there aren’t

Many if any on the faculty with
Your experience or your
Specialized training my hand’s
Are tied

Iwo loses my twenty-five
C.V. copies five naria is not

Enough to find them ASUU goes
On strike moratorium on hiring
Shoes wor out business suit

Frayed unsuited for tropical
Heat ten kobo is all that remains
Of settling stake sell my camera

Fade from social contacts hide
A half life of three months move
To boy’s quarters in Bushorun
Cook with kerosene make a fable
Out of abjectivity in which to
Live

Move now like an elephant in
Tight shoes…

Down but not destiny here
In the bosom of Nigeria am
Made
Of strong stuff will not quit
Runaway

Be defected owe it to
Myself-friends real friends
Found in the salt of

Nigerian soil shelter in the time
Of trouble rocks in a weary land
Ajax and Linda poured balm
Over and

Bandaged my wounded heart
Watched over me with angel
Eyes Frank Oyenuga Fountain
Of encouragement Zenobia soft
severity looking glass clear

Chief Bessie Taiwo sister
Intimate
Motherwarm held my hand

Shoveled food in my stomach
Starch in my backbone John
Nwankwo gave help when there

Was no help steadfast staunch
Regenerative force Olu
Akinkoye
Brother lost and found
Hundredfold giving Bola and Lo
Gave me shelter taught me a
Lesson in trust

Sofie and Yemi sympathetic
Soothing caring welcome place
To hide to share Chris Chidebe
Provided cover from
Embarrassment a place to
Anonymously plan

Muyiwa Ogunaike faithful
Companion helped me

Trace Ibadan’s underbelly Yaya
Abubker gave hope to hold on
To lent powerful influence with
Interest

Secured the future…
Debts too great to ever repay

Except in kind and by an infinite
Number of cheerful installments
To Nigeria my cross my crown
…

IV

“Oga, oga, chei! Oga! Wake –
o…! Why you do dis t’ing?”
The driver’s face forms from
Many droplets of a dream;
Focuses
Into a mask of annoyance.

“Oh! Sorry-o; must have dozed
off. Is it time to go?”

The driver hissed in that way
That only African can, lips
Open, teeth clenched; sucking

In air mixed with bubbles of
Spit back across the cuspids

Forcing a passage between the
Teeth and the soft inner tissue
Of the cheeks. The sound and

The meaning is unmistakable. He turns angrily and runwalks

Up the footpath towards the taxi.
Fully awake now I hurriedly
Pick myself up, grab my shoes

And follow – the fool might
Leave me if I dawdle.

The engine is running when I
Reach the cab. The other
Passengers look at me strangely

But say nothing. My stomach
Growls in English, the price of
Indulging a turbulent spirit.
On the road again, we are
Quickly

Semi-airborne, flying across
The Niger without ceremony.
But for me a personal ritual

Is complete, and with that inner
Calm and glow that follows yet’

Another initiation I allow myself to
Be carried North to Kaduna and
Then, perhaps to Zaria and
Employment
Without a backward glance. I
Feel, really feel for the first

Time on this continent like a
Prodigal, bereft, bruised, but
Undaunted, coming home.

 

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©2007 by Joseph D. McNair

Web Author: Joseph D. McNair Copyright © 2006 by Joseph D. McNair -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED