Udu
Osahon Oka
I rush through your soaked veins,
a lush sunset ripening over the bridge.
My face is ever turned towards you
like a bird breaking into its shadow
to claim maggot light & seedling flush
down your dank, swollen length.
Your tattered edges where debris gather
like trade winds to haggle for a piece
of the road, for a path through the stench
bend & twist through the marshes
where children spin their dreams,
where I raised a kite made of old news
to swallow the sun & dampen
the lethargic smoke of burning sawdust.
Oh broken river, carry me back down
among the rushes, back down
among the white sands & pebbles
of my nostalgia; leave me
with the golden light of guava
& Indian almond trees, the soft tinkles
of noon like a faraway town; Delta Steel
rising out of its molten gloom,
slowly becoming steel again.
I rush through your soaked veins,
a lush sunset ripening over the bridge.
My face is ever turned towards you
like a bird breaking into its shadow
to claim maggot light & seedling flush
down your dank, swollen length.
Your tattered edges where debris gather
like trade winds to haggle for a piece
of the road, for a path through the stench
bend & twist through the marshes
where children spin their dreams,
where I raised a kite made of old news
to swallow the sun & dampen
the lethargic smoke of burning sawdust.
Oh broken river, carry me back down
among the rushes, back down
among the white sands & pebbles
of my nostalgia; leave me
with the golden light of guava
& Indian almond trees, the soft tinkles
of noon like a faraway town; Delta Steel
rising out of its molten gloom,
slowly becoming steel again.
|
Osahon Oka is a Nigerian of Bini/Kwale extraction. A Best of the Net Anthology and Pushcart Prize nominee, he is one of the winners of the Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize 2022. He has poems up on Pepper coast lit, Poetry Column ND, Fiery Scribe and elsewhere. He can be reached in Twitter @onyemazua7735.
|
