Laura by Esiaba Irobi

Laura
(For Laura Posta) 
 

May the future forgive me, Laura,

for what happened to our love.

 

I am holding its bleeding carcass

in my hands as I intone this elegy

 

in an evening of rotting rose petals

and dead flowers. Like the drystalks

 

of the 'Orphan's hair', that rare plant

whose leaves you plucked and gave

 

to me on the banks of the Danube. I have

preserved, in the vase of my memory,

 

the stanzas of the love songs you taught me

in Budapest, on the banks of the Danube.

 

Tavaszi szel vizet araszt, Viragom viragom

Minden madar farsat valaszt, Viragom viragom...

 

Forgive me, Laura. My Hungarian love, forgive me,

you who could speak the five languages of love

fluently, forgive me. It was my fault. The phone

calls I never made. The cards I should have sent.

Letters I did not reply in time. The silences. How sad.

How very sad. How still sad after all these moons

and the eclipse of the sun we swore would never set.

 

O! if only I could reverse the rotation of this confused

universe or rewind the video tape of our love, erase

the tracks of my betrayal, and replay, as I keep

replaying, again and again, the track, "Laura"

by Charlie Parker on this CD I bought in that cinema

shop in Budapest on that night we missed the film

and dined instead in that fake Indian restaurant

on what street now, perhaps we could,

like deciduous trees, begin again:

 

Hat en immar kit valasszak, Viragom viragom

Te engemet en tegedet, Viragom viragom

 

But it is too late now. Too too late. As you wrote in

your final card, 'The Titanic has sunk!' and forever.

 

Forgive me, Laura. Someday I will learn to love

with the steadfastness of the stone, not the wind.

Forgive me.

 

Esiaba Irobi - a poet, playwright, actor and scholar was born in the Republic of Biafra on October 1, 1960, and lived in in exile in Nigeria, Britain, United States and Germany where he passed away on May 3, 2010. He studied at the Universities of Nigeria, Sheffield and Leeds, and held a B.A. in English/Drama, M.A. Comparative Literature, M.A. Film/Theatre, and PhD in Theatre Studies. In 1992 his play, Cemetery Road won the prestigious World Drama Trust Award. His books include Nwokedi, The Colour of Rusting Gold, Cotyledons, Hangmen Also Die, and Why I don't Like Philip Larkin and Other Poems. He leaves behind a wife, Uloaku and a son, Nnamdi.