えんていは世話,
冬の木は見て
花が咲き
The gardener cares;
Winter pines solemnly watch
Flowers start to bloom
(c)Nyonglema
Cheerfulness (Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria)
Zest (Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration)
Contentment (Contentment, pleasure)
Pride (Pride, triumph)
Optimism (Eagerness, hope, optimism)
Enthrallment (Enthrallment, rapture)
Relief (Relief)
えんていは世話,
冬の木は見て
花が咲き
The gardener cares;
Winter pines solemnly watch
Flowers start to bloom
(c)Nyonglema
Oh Bethlehem of glorious fate,
You through love became so great,
For within your walls on stable bare
Mary lay her Babe in yester year.
The gusty winds of winter tide
She warded off as best she might:
With shards of cloth she swathed the Boy
Who brought Salvation to lack of joy.
In dark dull fields the light was lit
As shepherds, sheep got on their feet
To sing along to heavenly praise
And rush to see the King of Grace.
In foreign land some saw the star,
And left their own to travel far,
With gifts to honour and wisdom too,
They knelt and prayed the King of Truth.
And Mary watched her first born sleep
With Love, the wise, shepherds and sheep.
She got the mystery the angel voiced:
“Most glorious blessed, my Master’s choice.”
(c) Nyonglema
Oh Bethlehem of glorious fate,
You through love became so great,
For within your walls in lowly plate
Joe’s heir laid down His Godly state.
The gusty winter blew in the cold
As wife and Son in his cosy hold
Sought the heat cold morn denied
As if the manger’s shame to deride.
Loud clouds told the shepherds how
From Heaven to cradle God did bow,
And jump and run with sheep did they
To see the Saviour curled in hay.
In wisdom, three the star did see
And off to worship the Lord went they
To Herod, then to stable where
Joseph received gifts and wisdom rare.
And in that darkness shone that Light,
Of the world from that lowly site.
And Joseph, Mary, Jesus slept
In peace while God their spirits kept.
(c) Nyonglema
Oh Bethlehem of glorious fate,
You through love became so great,
For within your walls on stable bare
Mary lay her Babe in yester year.
The gusty winds of winter tide
She warded off as best she might:
With shards of cloth she swathed the Boy
Who brought Salvation to lack of joy.
In dark dull fields the light was lit
As shepherds, sheep got on their feet
To sing along to heavenly praise
And rush to see the King of Grace.
In foreign land some saw the star,
And left their own to travel far,
With gifts to honour and wisdom too,
They knelt and prayed the King of Truth.
And Mary watched her first born sleep
With Love, the wise, shepherds and sheep.
She got the mystery the angel voiced:
“Most glorious blessed, my Master’s choice.”
(c) Nyonglema
You listened to me, you talked to me, you touched me,
You fed me, helped me, prayed for me, loved me.
You warned me, protected me, taught me, clad me.
You all have been there from the start of me,
And participated in building me throughout each year.
You’ve been father, mother, sibling and friends to me.
You’ve been there, so thank you.
Though you doubt, you are dear to me, Thank You.
(c) Nyonglema
You are at a loss for ideas or words
As the bishop hacks your queen with two swords
And the knight knocks your rooks off
And the distraught king is deep in the rough.
But life is not a game of chess.
The spectators are disinterested with stress
And the scoreboard tells your players to do less.
Everybody wishes the whistle would go
To keep the 7 fixed with respect to the zero.
But life is neither football nor soccer.
You can hear the breath drawing near your rear,
And you feel this race is anything but fair,
For the first will soon overtake the last,
And you wish being last at the finish can soon pass.
But life’s nothing like a track competition.
Life’s neither chess nor soccer nor races,
And even as you tally your sad faces,
And weigh your failures and fears,
There can be counted joys through the years.
Unlike the competition to defeat
Another with skill and brave feat,
Your life opponent is your very human soul,
Seeking perfection through tonnes of failed goals.
Yes. So what if you didn’t keep the resolution?
So what if clumsiness destroys a last surviving edition?
The damage you deem highest abomination
May not seem, but can be the route to better your condition.
(c) Nyonglema
The lion levies fear upon the jungle
But the elephant trumps all other beasts
In respect and command, for not the bloody feasts
But size, stature,sagacity are its angle.
But of all the beasts, but one will wonder
The eye and stealthily win the Darwin fight
By changing its hide, instead of cowardly flight,
To match the colour of all it ponders.
(c) Nyonglema
Most perplexing about the capacity of human brains,
Is the flexibility felt when my sons learn computer games.
I watch them go from that searching stare of silent innocence,
Lying in crib or mat, swatting at pendants as if in offence
To swiping and stabbing with index finger at all passing tablets,
Cellphones, my poor laptop! If there’s a display and app-lets
Or full-blown applications with colours which beckon,
They’re game for clicking about and that’s done heavy wreckage on
The peripherals peacefully attached to the gizmo they batter
In their quest for quenching ardent curiosity in their grey matter.
But these steps though hilarious to watch at length,
I know, are the steps which guided will lead to full strength.
Yup!
But the hardware would have suffered massively in the event.
(c) Nyonglema
I dedicate to the kids of the 80s…remember your parent’s LCD calculator?….yeah!
DJ Drop the needle on the record
And send strong waves singeing my synapses,
Nudging my senses, confounding each cord
Composing my sinews to move in accord,
Enthralled by the notes dancing on the staff.
(c) Nyonglema
Quietly waiting…patiently waiting.
It’s been 30 long years in this carousel
Going round and round without abating:
Same pane on the windows and tears on the curtains,
The changing weather leading to animals mating
And flowers changing, then dying, then blooming again
Contrasting so badly to my life monotonously deflating.
Some say it’s ageing, the journey we all will take
To grey and wither, but I’m heavily hating
The fact that it but happens to me. The same thing
Over and over, but as disappointing as bad blind dating.
The same sorry sentences engraved in processed wood
To misinform me, make me mellow, sedating
My wisdom to the point I know no better
Than to sit distraught, depressed, desperately waiting;
Waiting for the change Sam Cooke promised.
Waiting instead of starting change, waiting patiently.
(c) Nyonglema
Count your blessings
Hit the mark more often
Reading, Writing, Hearing and Tasting the Art of Life
When reluctance gives in to the urge of expression....