Fragments Out Of The Deluge VII: And From Frame Of Iron by Christopher Okigbo

AND FROM frame of iron

came HE,

In mould of iron …

and he ate the dead lion,

and was within the corpse …

which is not the point;

And who says it matters

which way the kite flows,

Provided movement is around

the burning market,

The centre-

So lilies

Sprouted from rosebeds,

Canalilies,

Like tombstones from pavements;

And to the cross in the void

came pilgrims,

Came floating with burnt-out tapers:

Past the village orchard

where FLANNAGAN

Preached the Pope’s message,

To where drowning nuns suspired,

Asking the KEY-WORD from stone,

and he said:

To sow the fireseed among grasses,

and lo,

To keep it till it burns out …

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.