Saturday, 18 July 2015

The Call of the River Nun by Gabriel Okara

I hear your call!
I hear it far away;
I hear it break the circle of these crouching hills.

I want to view your face again and feel your cold
embrace; or at your brim to set myself and inhale your breath;
or like the trees,
to watch my mirrored self unfold and span my days with
song from the lips of dawn.

I hear your lapping call!
I hear it coming through;
invoking the ghost of a child
listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow.

My river's calling too!
Its ceaseless flow impels
my found'ring canoe down
its inevitable course.
And each dying year
brings near the sea-bird call,
the final call that
stills the crested waves
and breaks in two the curtain
of silence of my upturned canoe.

O incomprehensible God!
Shall my pilot be
my inborn stars to that
final call to Thee.
O my river's complex course?

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel jibaba Okara was born on 25th April, 1921 in Bomoundi in Bayelsa State, Nigeria . In 1979, he was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry.

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