The fire just went out in the hearth, As the pot, cold stares out the hut door. The wood burnt, yet nothing anymore Can tell the story of the flames it bore. Clean out the dust, clean it out! Our God is an awesome God who loves to see Cleanliness in everything! Clean quickly For Him to see how clean our feat Even the darkened soot mud walls Seem to cower and hide, lest one notices That they witnessed the fire, that pieces Of history reside in their crevices As webs dangle from the bamboo overhead, Darkened by that fire, slowly swaying In the windless silence of the day greying. The cold pot silently stares out the door. What pain put out the fire in the hearth? What self-glorification deceives in aspect, Forcing cleanliness, not as one would expect By seeing the ashes, picturing insects Dancing in the flames that made them Smoke rising, lighting the walls, A cacophony of color, noise, mayhem Under the metal pot enthralled. What pain put out the fire in the heart? To deny the fire once there, to deny ashes, A mark of humus in the very code of DNA, A hot pot changing the fruits of the day, Seeing God not in our earthly feats But directing our feet along His own way? What pain hides the fire from the heart? Lift the wood and live again, light a new flame Light a new flame, and touch the ash. (c) nyonglema
Tag Archives: God
No god ?
The multiverse expands beyond human imagination, The monoverse as well, spreading in every direction. Are we alone? Was mars ours before? The questions stomp on Einstein's ant brain Yet others gnaw at its toe nails, as if To mock at greatness, as if they could win all. Yes, others study humbly and can tell what destruction 80kg of weird humongous monstrosity can action In their ant-ly lives. Those gnawing think 80kg, 50, 20kg are all the same. Is lack of knowledge about something, proof That all answers are equally possibly true? Is black dark grey and white a lighter black? Is killing 10 people same as 5 million lives, Or is starving an infant in a death camp The same as denying a meal to a migrant? Is failing to save the planet, the same as Failing to save your neighbor's house from flames? Does the decapitation by one justify the inquisition? Or does the inquisitor's evil justify decapitation? Does the guillotine prove fickle humanity, Or does it show the eternity of revolution? Are all theories of our existence valid, In spite of the contradictions beaming from them? In our quest for the mind of God, as said Albert, Can every theory explain our reality accurately? Is the addition of 2 and 2 same as 2²? Are we claiming no god based on our understanding, Or our lack of understanding of our surroundings? Are we ants that gnaw, or ones that seek to grow? (c) nyonglema
In the desert
I hear voices telling me I'm not enough. My inadequacies gang up for an intervention, And I'm the center of their morbid attention: "You are and will be found wanting." Camel skin marked the way way back. The desert stirred as "Repent" echoed along The lonely shores of the River Jordan, and throng Upon throng came to listen. I'm not there. A straight, flattened way for the Lord Was the requirement for any form of joy. Yet all I bring are curves, hills and voids, And inability to do better or more. "Before birth, before you were formed..." I've read that, but should I believe it? Definitely it was meant for some great prophet, Not me, seed on rocky soil wilting away How shall the Lord travel these traps That my hungry angry soul sets in despair? How shall he navigate a heart so in disrepair Even spiders won't build webs there? "Don't be afraid, for I am with you...." Whispers floating to my cowering ears To persuade me to cast away the fears That gang up to jail-bar my attention. With four candles burning on the wreath, And my healing heart still thinking about my fate While making the straight to welcome the babe I move to not be afraid for He is with me It's a child's craft on the potter's wheel, The trembling fingers on the archer's bow, A wrench eating at a loose nut, but I sure know That I'm not alone in fixing that manger Which for the Architect is Heaven's harbinger (c) nyonglema
Luck
The electrons rush down their path, Reacting to my finger pressure on buttons. It's all by chance. I hit the gas pedal and lurching Forward, the trees rush past the moving wind. It's all by chance. Infra-red waves open the portal To news, the world and its fun on my TV screen, It's all by chance. The blender spins to chop, Perfectly sharpened and balanced to act, It's all by chance. Oh... you don't think so? You think we should credit some human For this genius and the art? Yet... The Earth floats between death and sun, In a solar system set just right in the milky way, But it's all by chance. Celestial bodies pummel everything, Sparing Earth despite their random deadly craze But it's all by chance. Solar flares cast deadly rays, But the ozone is just there so you tan just right, But it's all by chance. Our brains can think about thinking About another person thinking about thinking, But it's all by chance. Yes, You want me to believe that in history, One day a cat gave birth to a beast not a cat And another cat gave birth to that same species And they met, and happily started a new line of Not cats... just by chance. Like at some point a unicell Moved out to become multicellular And made you, randomly, by picking the luck From the safe possible DNA/RNA recombinations: 1 to quadrillion cells in less than a trillion years, Just by chance. That out of millions of possibilities, You made it to the egg, just by chance. That you're just a fluke The result of mere luck A glitch in the machine. (c) nyonglema
Atheism
The question remains: is there a carpenter?
Nails walked into the wood at right angles
And just at the positions and length to hold
Bars together. The bars themselves came off
The tree's intestines, in fitting chunks of
Lego magic. Baby skin smooth they came
Together and in went the nails. They came
12 of them, in 6 sets of twins, with a specific
Spontaneous destiny: to become part of the
Mindless chanceful event of a chair.
They came together in unplanned sequence
Such that it was done right and looked good.
But the angles aren't right, and the joints
Sing their pain when one tries to sit.
This thing looks like it might fall apart.
The splinter in my finger tells the chair
That it didn't polish itself right ... Then
I ask myself:
Could this have been a misstep of nature?
A random event?
Probability of 12 pieces of wood being right
Probability of them arranged just right
Probability of nails shaped and long just right
Probability of 12 nails going in just right
Probability of this holding together?
I've been told that a crappy chair
Is the proof of the absence of a carpenter,
But did the chair just spawn itself or
Or was it just a crappy street corner carpenter?
(c) nyonglema
To Live
The drops of rain piano on the bars of my window
Where I can see the hide and seek game sun and rain
Play; the clouds laugh in silver rays like joyous waterfalls:
Birds love waterfalls. They polka the sky and tweet
Their cares away to the gentle wind under their wings.
Nature just opened its eyes to smile on the eternity
Of me, the sun, the rain, the clouds, the wind, the birds,
And the rest of restless creation soaking in the beautiful
Predicament of being alive for just this brief while
And yet relishing the divinity and love in every moment of it.
(c) nyonglema
God’s punishment #findLight
The furniture gallops towards my legs
And I reach out to grab anything to hold.
The pride is on me once I thud the ground.
I manage to rise again, reaching out
My hands as desperate eyes, feeling.
The stairs like hyenas are next,
Ready to finish me off, they jujitsu-
MMA-grip toss me to the ground, even harder.
I rise again, more in pain, seething with anger.
God's punishing me for not switching on the lights!?
I guess, I'll just switch on on my traverse back:
The stairs and the furniture like puppy
And lazy kitten, just sit still. My punishment's past.
(c) nyonglema
42 #meaning
Where do you go from here?
The sign post set by dad and mom just warped
Into this monster pointing in every which direction.
Yesterday, it all seemed clear: backpack stuffed,
Maps marked and ready, dreams clear and steady
Like a tight line stunt. But now,
Where do you go from here?
You thought you had the director's chair covered
And all ought to fall in place like Lego art by LUGS.
But you miscalculated the meaning of the journey to God,
It's deeper than degrees, deeper than 18, deeper than love,
And can only go if you seek, understand, and let go
(c) nyonglema
Shooting your foot #Cameroon
I told him exactly the same as I’m telling you now:
The gun you point at your people is a gun you point
At your pupil, or at your pupils, or through a peephole
Into a future with LED lights lining trees capturing
Sunlight, and lightning, a future enlightened
By the lightness of the smiles of generations to come
A peephole looking back at the nozzle of a barrel.
I knew he wouldn’t listen, for without the ash splattered
Against my mane wisdom cannot be part of my game.
All their epithelia are the same, waiting for epitaphs
Epilogue to tales where epic lies dominate photographs
Of instants of truth, painful truth….like the peephole
And the barrel, and they’ve seen it all, the seed to the tree
The stream to the river, the whole range of our history
I knew he wouldn’t listen, nor read, nor taste of my sweat,
But maybe my blood, so I painted myself like the others
Vehement in thoughts dancing entrapped in cages of fear
Where the lines on the 60 leaves plane-leaved exercise book
Jump off the page where you jotted your deepest hopes for
Change, change into pain, twist your arms and pull your fingers
Around them. They turn into metal, and you’re looking out,
Wishing for a desk, a pen, but not even a toilet for your rear’s near.
But I know He will listen. He doesn’t read these words
He feels them. He sees my prayer that we’d stop crowding Peter’s
Waiting room: the logistics department had to order new magazines,
About cars, about medicine about emptying magazines on citizens,
To accommodate the throng waiting for their lift to the final
Destination: Heaven or Hell. The water dispenser needs refilling,
This place wasn’t designed for such affluence…well there was Noah,
Or better still his time, but there was enough notice for facilities
To be put in place. Not this time…but I know He listens.
So, they told him exactly as I tell you now:
When words can save the souls of many,
Lay Guns to rest by Pride’s old body
And dare to save another’s soul today
For face to face mountains all decay.
(c) nyonglema
Home #nature
There’s an orchestra in the trees
A funny band they are, uniform with instruments.
The same notes rustle enchanted leaves,
Putting on a show for the feathery clouds pasted
Across the tapestry of God’s palace,
(For a carpenter, it’s strange He fancies blue)
Spreading before my eyes covered in awe
Taking it all in: the air pressure mounting Bucephalus to move
Feathers on the band, the sunlight stealing trinkets of colour for
My hungry eyes, the Earth of golden brown,
Holding years of history in stories it whispers to my consciousness
As I grab a fistful of my raw material.
Maybe I should seek a seat by those rowdy fellows
And watch their breasts vibe at the resonance
Of nature’s beauty.
Oh that band of one instrument.
One as an instrument taking me home.
(c) Nyonglema
waghni 