Chinua Achebe: Collected Poems

by Chinua Achebe

once, did I hear mother speak

  again in their little disputes once

  he'd said it. From then began

  my long unrest: what was this

  Thing so unanswerable and why

  was it dogged by that

  relentless Other? My mother

  proved no help at all nor did

  my father whose sole reply

  was just a solemn smile…. Quietly

  later of its own will it showed

  its face, so slowly, to me though

  not before they'd long been dead—my

  little old man and my mother

  also—and showed me too how

  utterly vain my private quest

  had been. Flushed by success

  I spoke one day in a trifling

  row: you see, my darling (to

  my wife) where Something

  stands—no matter what—there

  Something Else will take its

  stand. I knew, she said; she

  pouted her lips like a gun

  in my face. She knew, she said,

  she'd known all along of that

  other woman I was keeping in town.

  And I fear, my friends,

  I am yet to hear

  the last of it.

  Knowing Robs Us

  Knowing robs us of wonder.

  Had it not ripped apart

  the fearful robes of primordial Night

  to steal the design that crafted horns

  on doghead and sowed insurrection

  overnight in the homely beak

  of a hen; had reason not given us

  assurance that day will daily break

  and the sun's array return to disarm

  night's fantastic figurations—

  each daybreak

  would be garlanded at the city gate

  and escorted with royal drums

  to a stupendous festival

  of an amazed world.

  One day

  after the passage of a dark April storm

  ecstatic birds followed its furrows

  sowing songs of daybreak though the time

  was now past noon, their sparkling

  notes sprouting green incantations

  everywhere to free the world

  from harmattan death.

  But for me

  the celebration is make-believe;

  the clamorous change of season

  will darken the hills of Nsukka

  for an hour or two when it comes;

  no hurricane will hit my sky—

  and no song of deliverance.

  Bull and Egret

  At seventy miles an hour

  one morning down the seesaw

  road to Nsukka I came

  upon a mighty bull

  in form and carriage

  so unlike Fulani cattle—

  gaunt, high-horned, triangular

  faced—that come in herded

  multitudes from dusty savannas

  to the north…. Heavy

  was he, solitary dark

  and taciturn, one of a tribe

  they say fate has chosen

  for slow extinction. At his heels

  paced his egret, intent

  praise-singer, pure white

  all neck, walking high

  stilts and yet no higher

  than his master's leg joint….

  Odd covetousness indeed would

  leave its boundless green estates

  for a spell of petty trespassing

  on perilous asphalt laid for me…. My

  frantic blast of iron voice

  shattered their stately march, then

  recoiled brutally to my heart

  as he gathered in hasty panic

  the heaviness of his hind

  quarters, so ungainly in his

  hurry, and flung it desperate

  beyond my monstrous

  reach. I should have felt unworthy then

  playing such pranks on the noble

  elder and watching his hallowed

  waist cloth came undone had not

  his singer fared so well…. Two

  quick hops, a flap of

  wings and he was

  safe posture intact on

  brown laterite…. I could not

  bear him playing so

  faithfully my faithless agility-man, my

  scrambler to safety, throat dilated

  still by remnant praises

  of his excellency high-headed

  in delusion marching now alone

  into death's ambush…. We were

  spared, the bull and I, in our separate follies….

  His routed sunrise procession

  no doubt would reform beyond the clamor

  of my passage and sprightly

  egret take up again

  his broken adulation

  of the bull, his everlasting

  prince, his giver-in-abundance

  of heavenly cattle ticks.

  Lazarus

  We know the breathtaking

  joy of his sisters when the word

  spread: He is risen! But a

  man who has lived a full life

  will have others to

  reckon with beside his

  sisters. Certainly that keen-eyed

  assistant who has moved up

  to his table at the office, for

  him resurrection is an awful

  embarrassment…. The luckless

  people of Ogbaku knew its

  terrors that day the twin-headed

  evil strode their highway. It

  could not have been easy

  picking up again the blood-spattered

  clubs they had cast away; or to

  turn from the battered body

  of the barrister lying beside his

  battered limousine to finish off

  their own man, stirring now suddenly

  in wide-eyed resurrection…. How well

  they understood, those grim-faced

  villagers wielding their crimson

  weapons once more, how well

  they understood that at the hour

  of his rising their kinsman

  avenged in murder would turn

  away from them in obedience

  to other fraternities, would turn indeed

  their own accuser and in one

  breath obliterate their plea

  and justification! So they killed

  him a second time that day on the

  threshold of a promising resurrection.

  Vultures

  In the grayness

  and drizzle of one despondent

  dawn unstirred by harbingers

  of sunbreak a vulture

  perching high on broken

  bone of a dead tree

  nestled close to his

  mate his smooth

  bashed-in head, a pebble

  on a stem rooted in

  a dump of gross

  feathers, inclined affectionately

  to hers. Yesterday they picked

  the eyes of a swollen

  corpse in a waterlogged

  trench and ate the

  things in its bowel. Full

  gorged they chose their roost

  keeping the hollowed remnant

  in easy range of cold

  telescopic eyes….

  Strange

  indeed how love in other

  ways so particular

  will pick a corner

  in that charnel house

  tidy it and coil up there, perhaps

  even fall asleep—her face

  turned to the wall!

  … Thus the Commandant at Belsen

  Camp going home for

  the day with fumes of

  human roast clinging

  rebelliously to his hairy

  nostrils will stop

  at the wayside sweetshop

  and pick
up a chocolate

  for his tender offspring

  waiting at home for Daddy's

  return….

  Praise bounteous

  providence if you will

  that grants even an ogre

  its glowworm

  tenderness encapsulated

  in icy caverns of a cruel

  heart or else despair

  for in the very germ

  of that kindred love is

  lodged the perpetuity

  of evil.

  Public Execution in Pictures

  The caption did not overlook

  the smart attire of the squad. Certainly

  there was impressive swagger in that

  ready, high-elbowed stance; belted

  and sashed in threaded dragon teeth

  they waited in self-imposed restraint—

  fine ornament on power unassailable—

  for their cue

  at the crucial time

  this pretty close-up lady in fine lace

  proved unequal to it, her first no doubt,

  and quickly turned away But not

  this other—her face, rigid

  in pain, firmly held between her palms;

  though not perfect yet, it seems

  clear she has put the worst

  behind her today

  in my home

  far from the crowded live-show

  on the hot, bleached sands of Victoria

  Beach my little kids will crowd

  round our Sunday paper and debate

  hotly why the heads of dead

  robbers always slump forward

  or sideways.

  Gods, Men, and Others

  Penalty of Godhead

  The old man's bed

  of straw caught a flame blown

  from overnight logs by harmattan's

  incendiary breath. Defying his age and

  sickness he rose and steered himself

  smoke-blind to safety.

  A nimble rat appeared at the

  door of his hole looked quickly to left and

  right and scurried across the floor

  to nearby farmlands.

  Even roaches that grim

  tenantry that nothing discourages

  fled their crevices that day on wings they

  only use in deadly haste.

  ousehold gods alone

  frozen in ritual black with blood

  of endless tribute festooned in feathers

  perished in the blazing pyre

  of that hut.

  Those Gods Are Children

  (for Gabriel Okara)

  No man who loves himself

  will dare to drink

  before his fathers' presences enshrined

  by the threshold have drunk

  their fill. A fool alone will

  contest the precedence of ancestors

  and gods; the wise wisely

  sing them grandiloquent lullabies

  knowing they are children

  those omnipotent deities.

  Take that avid-eyed old man

  full horn in veined hand

  unsteadied by age who calls

  forward his fathers tilting the horn

  with amazing skill for a hand

  so tremulous till grudging trickles

  break through white froth

  at the brim and course down

  the curved side to fine point

  of sacrifice ant-hole-size in earth:

  come together all-powerful spirits

  and drink; no need to scramble

  there's enough for all!

  Or when the offering of yams

  is due who sends the lively

  errand son to scour the barn

  and bring a sacrifice fit

  for the mighty dead! Naive

  eager to excel the child

  returns in sweat lumbering

  the heavy pride of his father's harvest:

  ignorant child, all ears and no eyes!

  is that the biggest in my barn?

  I said the biggest!

  Only then does the nimble child

  perceive a surreptitious fist quickly shown

  and withdrawn again—and break through

  wisdom's lashing cordon to welcoming smiles

  of initiation. He makes the journey

  of the neophyte to bring home a ritual

  offering as big as an egg.

  II

  Long ago a man of fury drawn

  by doom's insistent call slew

  his brother. The land and every deity

  screamed revenge: a head for a head

  and raised their spear

  to smite the town should it

  withhold the due. The man

  was ready. The elders' council

  looked at him and turned

  from him to all the orphans doubly

  doomed and shook their heads:

  the gods are right and just! This man

  shall hang but first may he

  retrieve the sagging house

  of his fathers

  and the fine points

  of the gods' spears

  returned to earth

  and he lived for years that man

  of death he raised his orphans

  he worked his homestead and his farmlands

  till evening came and laid him low

  with cruel foraging fever. Patient

  elders peering through the hut's dim

  light darkened more by smoke

  of smoldering fire under his bed

  steady-eyed at a guilt they had stalked

  across scrublands and seven rivers, a long-prepared

  hangman's loop in their hand

  quickly circled his neck

  as he died

  and the gods

  and ancestors

  were satisfied.

  III

  They are strong and to be feared

  they make the mighty crash

  in ruin like iroko's fall

  at height of noon scattering

  nests and frantic birdsong

  in damped silence of deep

  undergrowth. Yet they are fooled

  as easily as children those deities

  their simple omnipotence

  drowsed by praise.

  Lament of the Sacred Python

  I was there when lizards

  were ones and twos, child

  Of ancient river god Idemili. Painful

  Teardrops of Sky's first weeping

  Drew my spots. Sky-born

  I walked the earth with royal gait

  And crowds of human mourners

  Filing down funereal paths

  Across lengthening shadows

  Of the dead acknowledged my face

  In broken dirges of fear.

  But of late

  A wandering god pursued,

  It seems, by hideous things

  He did at home has come to us

  And pitched his tent here

  Beneath the people's holy tree

  And hoisted from its pinnacle

  A charlatan bell that calls

  Unknown monotones of revolts,

  Scandals, and false immunities.

  And I that none before could meet except

  In fear though I brought no terrors

  From creation's day of gifts I must now

  Turn on my track

  In dishonorable flight

  Where children stop their play

  To shriek in my ringing ears:

  Look out, python! Look out, python!

  Christians relish python flesh!

  And mighty god Idemili

  That once upheld from earth foundations

  Cloud banks of sky's endless waters

  Is betrayed in his shrine by empty men

  Suborned with the stranger's tawdry gifts

  And taken trussed up to the altar-shrine turned

 
Slaughterhouse for the gory advent

  Feast of an errant cannibal god

  Tooth-filed to eat his fellows.

  And the sky recedes in

  Disgust; the orphan snake

  Abandoned weeps in the shadows.

  Their Idiot Song

  These fellows, the old pagan

  said, surely are out of their mind—

  that old proudly impervious

  derelict skirted long ago by floodwaters

  of salvation: Behold the great

  and gory handiwork of Death displayed

  for all on dazzling sheets this

  hour of day its twin nostrils

  plugged firmly with stoppers of wool

  and they ask of him: Where

  is thy sting?

  Sing on, good fellows, sing

  on! Someday when it is you

  he decks out on his great

  iron bed with cotton wool

  for your breath, his massing odors

  mocking your pitiful makeshift defenses

  of face powder and township ladies' lascivious

  scent, these others roaming

  yet his roomy chicken coop will

  be singing and asking still

  but YOU by then

  no longer will be

  in doubt!

  The Nigerian Census

  I will not mourn with you

  your lost populations, the silent columns

  of your fief erased

  from the king's book of numbers

  For in your house of stone

  by the great road

  you listened once to refugee voices

  at dawn telling of massacres and plagues

  in their land across seven rivers

  Like a hornbill in flight

  you tucked in your slippered feet

  from the threshold

  out of their beseeching gaze

  But pestilence farther

  than faraway tales of dawn

  had bought a seat in Ogun's reckless

  chariot and knocks by nightfall

  on your iron gate.

  Take heart oh chief; decimation

  by miscount, however grievous,

  is a happy retreat from bolder

  uses of the past. Take heart,

  for these scribal flourishes

  behind smudged entries, these

  trophied returns of clerical headhunters

  can never match the quiet flow

  of red blood.

  But if my grudging comfort fail,

  then take this long and even view to A.D. 2010

  when the word is due to go out again

  and—depending on which Caesar

  orders the count—new conurbations