Once Upon a Time by Gabriel Okara

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes:

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:

but that’s gone, son.

Now they shake hands without hearts:

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home’! ‘Come again’:

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice –

for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses - homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,

when I mean ‘Good-riddance’;

to say ‘ Glad to meet you’,

without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been

nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you. I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs !

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel Imomotimi Okara was born on 25th April, 1921 in Bomoundi in Bayelsa State, Nigeria . In 1979, he was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry.

Piano and Drums by Gabriel Okara

When at break of day at a riverside
I hear the jungle drums telegraphing
the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
like bleeding flesh, speaking of
primal youth and the beginning
I see the panther ready to pounce
the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with spears poised;

And my blood ripples, turns torrent,
topples the years and at once I’m
in my mother’s laps a suckling;
at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts
in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.

Then I hear a wailing piano
solo speaking of complex ways in
tear-furrowed concerto;
of far away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint,
crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
of its complexities, it ends in the middle
of a phrase at a daggerpoint.

And I lost in the morning mist
of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
of jungle drums and the concerto.

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel jibaba Okara was born on 25th April, 1921 in Bomoundi in Bayelsa State, Nigeria . In 1979, he was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry.

The Call of the River Nun by Gabriel Okara

I hear your call!
I hear it far away;
I hear it break the circle of these crouching hills.

I want to view your face again and feel your cold
embrace; or at your brim to set myself and inhale your breath;
or like the trees,
to watch my mirrored self unfold and span my days with
song from the lips of dawn.

I hear your lapping call!
I hear it coming through;
invoking the ghost of a child
listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow.

My river's calling too!
Its ceaseless flow impels
my found'ring canoe down
its inevitable course.
And each dying year
brings near the sea-bird call,
the final call that
stills the crested waves
and breaks in two the curtain
of silence of my upturned canoe.

O incomprehensible God!
Shall my pilot be
my inborn stars to that
final call to Thee.
O my river's complex course?

Gabriel Okara

Gabriel jibaba Okara was born on 25th April, 1921 in Bomoundi in Bayelsa State, Nigeria . In 1979, he was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry.