Limits III: Banks Of Reed by Christopher Okigbo

BANKS of reed.

Mountains of broken bottles.

& the mortar is not yet dry …

Silent the footfall

Soft as cat’s paw,

Sandalled in velvet,

in fur

So we must go,

Wearing evemist against the shoulders,

Trailing sun’s dust saw dust of combat,

With brand burning out at hand-end.

& the mortar is not yet dry …

Then we must sing

Tongue-tied without name or audience,

Making harmony among the branches.

And this is the crisis point,

The twilight moment between

sleep and waking;

And voice that is reborn transpires,

Not thro’ pores in the flesh,

but the soul’s back-bone.

Hurry on down –

Thro the high-arched gate –

Hurry on down

little stream to the lake;

Hurry on down –

Thro the cinder market –

Hurry on down

in the wake of the dream;

Hurry on down –

To rockpoint of CABLE

To pull by the rope

The big white elephant …

& the mortar is not yet dry

& the mortar is not yet dry…

and the dream wakes

and the voice fades

In the damp half light

like a shadow,

Not leaving a mark.

*Cable: Cable Point at Asaba, a sacred waterfront with rocky promontory, and terminal point of a traditional quinquennial pilgrimage.

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.