(For Ruth Banjo)

Like a wolf in the dead night,

My quill howls some pressing words.

They that are my joy to keep

And still a burden I love to bear.

A boyish man of the hood,

No landlord to thoughts of emotions deep,

Groomed to wake and sleep,

Whatever happens between matters less.

Forgive that I a sexist was;

Fear mothered the hatred in me –

Fear to descend so low,

So high as gentle meekness.

Envy fathered the hatred –

Envy of they that know hate not.

I concurred with them –

They that announced the passing away

Of what used to be named Love.

Though we never met –

The late and I –

I concurred still; I concurred.

Yet in my silence,

In sleep and in wake,

Dream I of a beep;

A soft beep on my cell phone.

A tiny voice saying “hello”

A smile for once that is true.

“Hark!” I told me,

It won’t happen.

Not until the scorching moon

Burns my holy hairs black.

Not until the lonely stars

Pay visit to the midday sun.

Aye, I dream,

But if all dreams come true,

I would be dreaming.

Alas, it happened.

I drank the blue water I dread.

The thoughts became my patient.

I loved and loved;

Or,

So they called what I did.

They come, they’re gone,

Looters of a bit of my heart,

They come and they go.

But someone came,

And since never left…

You.

What kept you…

What kept us…

Together?

Perhaps the tears we shed,

Perhaps the smiles we shared,

Or the words we left to speak,

Or the friendship we made our base.

There on your eyeballs,

Those that the dew burn,

Is a letter scroll of old;

It reads, “it matters not,

Not anymore on man’s planet,

Books we wrote for yesterday to read.”

My cool in the terrible summer,

My wool in the dead winter,

Torch on the moonless nights,

Sparkle during the sun’s weird break.

If I return,

After Death I greet,

If to this awry land,

My stubborn self returns,

Please stay not.

Ply the road I trod,

Lest myself I see here –

Lost and alone.

That we, together as always,

Shall meet yesterday tomorrow.

“I love you,”

Each shall say again.

Michael Adejonwo