Tidewash

Memories

fold-over-fold free-furrow

mingling old tunes with new.
Tidewash.....Ride me
memories, astride on firm
saddle, wreathed with white
lillies & roses of blood.....

Sing to the rustic flute:
Sing a new note...

Where are the Maytime flowers,
where the roses? What will the
Watermaid bring at sundown,
a garland? A handful of tears?
Sing to the rustic flute:
Sing a new note...

Comes Dawn
gasping thro worn lungs,
Day breathes,
panting like torn horse -

We follow the wind to the fields
Bruising grass leafblade and corn...

Sundown: I draw in my egg head.
Night falls
smearing sore bruises with Sloan's
boring new holes in old sheets -

We hear them, the talkative pines,
And nightbirds and woodnymphs afar off ...

Shall I answer their call,
creep on my underself

out of my snug hole, out of my shell

to the rocks and the fringe for cleansing?

Shall I offer to Idoto

my sandhouse and bones,

then write no more snow-patch?

Sing to the rustic flute.

Sing a new note. - Christopher Okigbo