Tag Archives: new life

joy

Fly butterfly, fly

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Fly butterfly, fly. In the past you slugged
Across the wood to catch some leaves.
You painted yourself colours that would shrug
Off the creatures who see only food
When they look at you.
The acid rain beat your coat, like the
Tears you shed for your digested siblings.
But on you went, midrib to midrib,
Waiting for the day you earn your reward.

Gripping the branches, you’d slip and restart
The journey to the green, from the ant-laden ground
Where a bird took one brother then another;
But you never stopped crawling
You’d always hear destiny calling:

“Die, butterfly, die!” And you accepted the cross

So, fly, butterfly,fly!

(c) nyonglema

joy

April fool #rainySeason #spring

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The seeds are losing their coats of colours varied
Within the arid earth, looking to the sky’s greyness,
And the thunder oliphanting the triumphant outburst
From bustling clouds dancing the ball of the newly married,

In the loud wind whooshing and rushing about the dry grass,
Littering with dust our squinted eyes as the first drops
Jump out to wash away the drear of the season of nix,
The season of bare land, searing heat on soil like dead brass

The seeds welcome the drops intensifying with each step
Of humans seeking shelter, or humans going helter skelter,
April’s joy filling them as they foresee their plants growing
As the death of barren land leaves for fresh green and pep.

(c) Nyonglema

surprise

The Grass is Greener #hereHome #home

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We’re not called upon to choose anything we live through;
Neither parent nor sibling nor school nor form of sinew;
Neither colour of hair or eye or skin,
Nor love or hate, nor loss or gain
Nor opportunities nor whence we come. So much is true.

But as much as this truth I hold as true as sunlight,
I know that painful times will time to time alight
When with bitter phlegm you curse
The earth where you breathed first
And wish your day of birth were scratched by He with might.

I know. Same feelings have plagued my adult soul
And the wish for better home to make each day whole
Has been dashed by shameful news,
Where Hope, seeing Hitler, and 94’s Hutus,
Needs to hide its youth to stall the death toll.

But amidst pain, hate and bottled despair rife
There’s the rare love, innocent and hardly grasping to life.
For here, we can give our all
When we choose to keep you from a fall.
We really do it: humble, loving…just like the Lord’s life.

Yes, it’s easier to perceive the weeds in one’s garden
For the pastures beyond gleam in our myopia, hiding their burden.
And seeing that weed can cast a shadow
On all that’s sweet, but cause much ado
About the bitter parts, and it day by day your heart will harden.

Think of the evening breeze on the night grill,
Feeding the flames of a delicious family fish meal.
Think of hitting the unadulterated
Lands of hills where ancient rivers percolated
And happy goats skip, and cattle graze and one can feel

Life whizzing through rustling leaves of dancing old tree or reed,
Playing the music our ancestors learned to read,
Making your lungs touch their purpose,
Dazzling your eyes like a Jabbawockeez pose,
The music we’ve forgotten as we focus on some RSS feed.

Think of the youths wise with tradition re-enacting solemnly
The dances and music handed down from before when Ptolemy
Phrased ancient philosophical data,
To the time of the expansive empire of Sundiatta
Beads stomping the dust frantically in musical poetry.

Picture the pure darkness which crowds the silent night air,
Unveiling the marvellous dotted and scattered there
In the moonlit heavenly canvas,
Watching us from light years past,
And we fascinated by the sparkling magic they share.

So to sum it all up, I know it cannot be perfect,
And sometimes I rant and make massive graffiti of its defects,
But this home my parents chose
Still draws my spirit close,
For the bond is deeper, far deeper than human senses can detect.

(c) Nyonglema

joy

A baby’s smile #smile #baby #innocence #newLife

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Can you describe a baby’s smile? Let me try:
A breath of fresh air while the sewage tanks are drained;
That momentary silence when gunshots fill the air;
Cool palm oil on your tongue after your first crab curry;
when you shut your eyes to stop incoming traffic glare;
when a persistent cramp finally disappears;
Taking off your blistering work shoes when the day is done.

The pureness of the lines, and the innocence written in an infant’s smile cast all my stress away.
Unrestrained, untainted. The pure expression of appreciation that says: “Yes, you count”, “Thank you!”, “I love you” without uttering a word.
Those 5 seconds where everything means so much more, where nothing else matters than how happy this human being is of the mutual expression of love, as you smile back.

(c)Nyonglema

 

In the comments, tell us what your baby’s smile is like to you….

love

THE UNION #supportWidows #supportWidowers

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From far away past where silent orbs

Danced to rhythms of unknown forces forging

Newer niches in cloud then soil then rock,

Smouldering, sizzling silently as time tic toc

Ebbed away, watching life on some lifeless rock surging,

To this day when we dance to the rhythm of Forbes,

The moon and sun in divine love urging

Have danced about the earth: light source upon a rock,

Bringing life to earth when the sullen clock

Calls out the grim owl, vile wolf, and sturdy sturgeon

Through the silent night nobody else disturbs,

Locked in eternal enthralment, watching the dark dungeon

Earth would be but for the sun- or moonlight it absorbs.

Moonlight from sunlight like new groom and virgin

Locked in an embrace older than Eden’s first baulk,

But sealed forever to work on this blue rock;

Bringing light to life on earth at dawn then dusk, merging

Efforts: sun casts its beams on daytime suburbs

But when the earth turns as if to shun its scourging,

That age old mission bound to fail as dusk struck

Finds new life in the passive glitter on that battered rock,

The partner playing its part, for so it was from the first forging.

From far away past, as far back as the silent space orbs,

The sun and moon in sublime love urging.

Have danced about and cast shadows out of this rock

And so it should be, for when one’s gone and you lose the rock

Foundation of the union, then is there but darkness and dirge in

The picture, and the survivor is just a lifeless rock listening for hope in the orbs.

(c)Nyonglema

joy

The Desert I Sought

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One step on the white blistering sand,
Sandals in hand, turban shrouding my beard
From the gusts of arid wind sucking my sweat
And burning my skin and mucosa.

I looked ahead, raising my hand
To block the sun and see the herd
Of camels ahead, and beyond the dunes,
The promise of death from thirst and hunger.

I saw the cactus hold firm to the sand,
And scavengers in the form of an innocent bird
Swimming overhead as if to admire their work:
Meatless bones basking lifeless in the sun.

Was that my fate? Lifeless in the sand
Going through the process to be bird turd
As they pecked and relished? So it seemed.
I pulled myself on, and my body protested.

Is this why this route was so bland?
That civilisation despite its million nerds
Had not found a way to profane the dunes
And  enforce its will on Nature’s plans?

But I keep on with the target at hand.
Oh…I forgot to give you the Word!
Great promise lies ahead, beyond the pain,
Beyond the thirst, beyond lurking death.

Behind me lies a devastated land,
The old me: wicked an absurd.
Beyond the pain lies Life, and just like a newborn,
I shall bear the suffering that takes me Home.

(c) Nyonglema