Light a fire upon the raging fire?
The wood shudders and writhes in pain
As fumes scoff at the deadly ire
Dancing about the dying twig, and it's plain:
Why add more fire to fire?
Seventy seven times seven is huge,
But sometimes barely sufficient to quell,
For forgiveness of the Scrooge
Is the silence of a storm-tossed city bell;
But this would cull the deluge:
(For the twig is now bent over,
Both sides seeking trust in combustibles,
The dance of shadows now groovier
Human life precious, now just expendable,
From a spark to a supernova)
That we had that mustard seed!
Barely perceptible, yet full of potential
Calling us eagerly to heed
The Master laying bare the essentials:
Grow faith, reach the mustard seed,
Hold the cycle of hate at bay!
With one act of kindness, a precious flower
Growing in the concrete today
Is the start of the end of destruction's power
Mustard seed. Mustard tree. Today.
(c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: faith
Choices
Where do they find their solace when time takes toll?
Choices that is. You know, when a fur coat seems better than a wind-breaking
piece of plastic in a shop where the browned decay of the sales lady’s teeth
hint at the bad breadth of its shoulders, and the colours seem off, but you’re
worried about the environment, so you lean towards it and away from dead animals.
Where do they find their stretch when time takes toll?
At one point you’ve got many, and at another the page is blank. Even the word
to start a poem hides behind the distractions of the day, and your choice to watch
Infinity Wars till 2am, and be up to your employer’s hobby, your livelihood, by
4am, which meant that your brain factory remained littered with yesterday.
I’ve noticed how choices impact choices, no troll!
It’s like the Mahjong possibility counter, and the kanji sign you just clicked
to reduce it, or when you go for a piece further off to the left, and the counter
goes up the sides of your cheeks, like to say you did the right thing by chance
or by calculated meticulousness.
My daughter stares me in the eyes as I get daily old:
I answer her that every action from that first cry she made hanging upside
down with amniotic coat has determined where she stands now, and every
action she freely wills will determine the amount of freedom she can exercise
as time takes its course and my hairline reduces my freedom of hair styling.
My son stares at my lies, head cocked like “It’s getting old!”:
I tell him freedom comes from sacrificing freedom, like Isaac on an altar, or
Joseph in a well, or me writing this here, or Jesus on a cross, or hitting a campaign
or running trail, or studying for a test, or digging up fossils, or just helping a
neighbour: the more of your freedom you forfeit for the right reasons, the more
you’re ready for the fullness of more freedom to forfeit.
(c) nyonglema
Fly Away #beMore #goForIt #don’tLookBack
Leaves flooded your dreams of youthful nights:
A young caterpillar crawling about the jungle
Dodging the sight of hungrier beasts in the heights,
And the ground beasts dreaming of you and their tongue.
A white streak in a ballet of windy green leaves,
Gripping, then crawling, then gnawing near the midrib
Then gripping, then crawling, watching what the spider weaves
As flies dance about as if they knew there was no return to their cribs.
A tough silken box later and you’re clothed in glory
Vestments singing bright colours for the whole world to know
Fluttering fleetingly from bough to bough in a fairy story
Where you’re king, queen, prince, horse and coach
I know you reminisce the crawling and gnawing of youth
But Time’s persistence is such that you can never have both.
Remember as you wish those days that, in truth,
History’s devices need be adapted for the present to suit.
(c) Nyonglema
In front of the door #addiction #lost #hope
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
The butterflies don’t fly around anymore where I live
Nor do bees weave honey out of the sweet notes from trees.
Outside there’s quiet, so quiet even the colours took leave
And the dim light scoffs the darkness dancing around me
The fireflies died eons ago. Those notes of the piano
I long to hear turned to screeches within each cord
Of my soul: broken chords, broken hope more than you’d know
The cling clang of my chains and my beaten soul are in accord.
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Yes the steps outside, those steps I hear as I fall
Into this abyss I love, those steps keep knocking and get denied
Entry to my cosy coroner of paradise which tends the walls
Within which I cage myself: this body I’ve hatefully knifed.
I clutch the bane and nurse my pain as my very own kin
And wish they could float in, wishing the owl’s hoot
Were not real, and they could pass through any- and everything
That the nightmares in my reality were entirely moot.
How shall I let them in to take away my pleasure
My treasure, my precious tender executioner?
The butterflies don’t fly around here in any measure
And the bees fled the pestilence in this corner.
(c) Nyonglema
Ebola #newDay #hope #faith #toTheFallen
Spring’s back with no sun,
Baobabs stare at their dead leaves,
Watching for fresh shoots
(c) Nyonglema
You Can #beChange #startChange #haveFaith #believe
Change beckons to the souls of erring humans
Walking this abyss of lies and false promises,
Oblivious of the lives beside, of cheerful instants
They miss with eyes fixed on the AFCON premises.
She gestures grandly in frantic frenzy,
But the eyes stay fixed on the soccer game
Till from white the blood taints them red and bronzey,
Then it’s over, and we all start to complain:
“The weather’s not right, the traffic’s too tight,
Corruption’s rife while thieves play with our taxes,
The economy’s gonn’ nose-dive, relationships turn to strife,
And that report’s not right, and that’s some fallacious praxis!”
She gestures, then whispers, then shouts to all:
“One domino’s tumble can make millions to fall;
Take that one step like when you first stopped to crawl.
You can be and bring change. Even the sequoia started small.
So off your complaint hats and choose your battle
Carefully, and that one cause go champion cheerfully.
If each a battle picks and the status quo rattles,,
What wave of change we’ll all see here today!!”
(c) Nyonglema
waghni 