By Victor Uzodinma Chukwuma
72. The Pilgrim’s Message
Naked to fate, I stand,
swimming through thorns
in the sky
searching for the stars.
In my pilgrimage,
the fireplace and clay pots,
the bamboo beds and tales,
and village lanes in me remain.
My soul and my mind,
my heart and my strength
remain tied to
our umbilical spirit.
Sorrow not, sing the songs,
that will remain me here,
dreams and astral projection
shall them bring to me, and me to you.
73. Am not dead
From the lands
that dread mortals
the land of the translated,
I come and the unjust worry.
Left alone, I would stay watching
but the bondage in the land,
are shackles I must help to unknot
before belonging to hereafter.
Everyday
my feet must tread the thin air
along the cemetery path
to the hut that sang first my requiem.
At my first coming,
my cloud struck the eyes of the children:
heads barren, necks painted black,
and they told frightful tales of a ghost.
My second coming,
their lions hide behind tree backs,
waiting to see the walking white pillar
noon and my hut hosts.
At my third call
broken pots, chalks and cocks’ blood,
palm fronds and lines of libation,
all tied my hut to the shrine.
But these manacles will not cease me,
come I must, till justice is done.
For the cry of orphaned future haunts me,
and bid me come.
For when the hue of wailing stops,
I will to hereafter belong.
Victor Chukwuma, Professor of Physics, renowned for his immense contribution to the development of Astronomy and Space Science in Nigeria, is a Fellow of the Astronomical Society of Nigeria and the Nigerian Institute of Physics.