By Victor Uzodinma Chukwuma
For my mother Maria,
who was one of us,
and all others
who are inmates of time:
loving, suffering and hoping.
Preface
The verses in this collection of poems, Inmates of Time, were written mainly decades ago, then left for life other pursuits, are paintings of homeland, bereavement, sufferings, war, apartheid and love. They are to me unforgettable metaphors that illustrate indescribable anguish, hope and love in times of profound anxiety. And each time I gaze at the poems my feelings is that these works like most paintings could also be found mounted on the walls of other people’s lives as well as speak to their experiences. However, for those who yet slumber through life, all that is required of them is to behold intensely the kaleidoscope that are my verses, and their past lives will come alive before their eyes.
Furthermore, I want to humbly note upfront that I am not an impressionist of the fatal hue, but all harsh life realities and virtual that are here painted should be taken to have come to me for a purpose, and joyfully may not be final as the poet avers:
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
– Rainer Maria Rilke in Autumn
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Victor Uzodinma Chukwuma
March 2018