Fragments Out of The Deluge IX: And to Us They Came by Christopher Okigbo

AND TO US they came –

(Malisons, malisons, mair than ten)

And climbed the bombax

and killed the Sunburn.

And they scanned the forest of oilbean,

its approach,

Surveyed its high branches…

And they entered into the forest,

And they passed through the forest,

oil oilbean,

And found them,

the twin-gods of the forest:

The grove was damp with airs,

with airs

the leaves,

And morndew beckoned, beckoned afar

from the oilbean trees,

From the branches of the gods of IRKALLA.

Within it –

within me –

Not a stir,

not a dead leaf whispered,

Splitting the dawnlit silence;

Not the still breath of the gods of IRKALLA.

Then the beasts broke –

(Malisons, malisons, mair than ten)

And dawn-gust grumbled,

fanning the grove

Like a horse-tail-man,

like the handmaid of dancers,

Fanning their trembling branches.

Their talons,

they drew out of their scabbard,

Upon the tree trunks,

as if on fire-clay,

Their beaks they sharpened,

And spread like eagles their felt-wings,

and descended,

Descended upon the twin-gods of IRKALLA.

And the ornaments of him,

And the beads about his tail;

And the carapace of her,

And her shell,

they divided.

And the gods lie in state

And the gods lie in state

without the long-drum.

And the gods lie unsung

And the gods lie

veiled only with mould,

Behind the shrinehouse.

Gods grow out,

abandoned;

And so do they…

Christopher Okigbo

Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo was born in 1930. He was a Nigerian poet and he is today widely acknowledged as one of the most outstanding postcolonial English-language African poets and one of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1967 while fighting for the independence of Biafra.