Reburying Okigbo
I
One death too many, a burial not enough
Songs will suffocate the evening
A grave too weak to hold his bones
A journey not enough,
Scars on a sacred skull
Will tell the asking bird where
The forgotten flute becomes presence
We bring him home bring him home bring him home!
A burial not enough,
We bring him home to the grove
Where the navel-cord
Ropes the foot of a dedicated palm tree
A journey's not enough, the grove murmurs
For the nnukwu mmuo , will come will go will come
The poet the soldier the prophet the rebel
Always seeing things saying things doing things
So who can bury the Word finally?
II
Dead poets don't bite.
Their poems do.
Somewhere in the CO's head
The poet's last words blow the bugle,
The smell of his blood all around
Hangs heavy on the parade ground
Six marching feet in front of the victory horse
Six more calamities
And the invading army takes over the ilo
Can it also take over the proverbs & the prophecies?
The secret service interrogating the bad poem
Can it round up all the signs and their hidden
meanings?
Are elegies POWs or runaway soldiers?
Dead Okigbos don't bite
Their memory does.
Obododimma Oha
Obododimma Oha, PhD, is a Professor of Cultural Semiotics and Stylistics in the Department of English at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
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