Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash. For Day 3 of the November Poem A Day Challenge. A poem about dreaming. ** And still, I find myself reaching for the solidity of certain earth, my feet aching for the cold comfort of the morning sand, breaking my free fall. This is a fevered dream that returns each night in which i find that home though close, disappears in the dim distance.
Photo by Lea Böhm on Unsplash. For Day 2 of the November Poem A Day Challenge. A Poem for when the unexpected triggers memories of home. ** It hangs heavy on the heart, its heft never ever far away it seems, always lurking, always waiting always ready to spring to life to the lines of a song suddenly borne on the wind, or the whiff of mothballs, unlocking the memory of the gathering, and of ritual. ...
For the November Poem-A-Day challenge. A poem about Entering, but mainly about leaving… ** On the days when I wake to a haze hiding the lushness of the valley below, its shadow hanging heavy like a shroud on limbs shrivelled by the ravages of time, I ponder the bland bleakness of air heavy with water, how it smothers life, and the beauty of things. Each day where the light yields ...
There is not a lot to say this week except to say that the events in Nigeria with the #EndSARS protests have been particularly encouraging, not least because they prove that the trope about Nigerians being endlessly resilient and willing to accept broken systems is patently false. Beyond the willingness to hit the streets day in day out, the speed with which systems of support and organization have sprung up and have been deployed at scale has been a thing of fascination. Young Nigerians do have the tools, the desire and the nous to make a difference, long may it continue! ...
Because we really need to #EndSARS #EndSWAT and end whatever silk purse is being made out of the sow’s ear that is that organization. I make no claims whatsoever to this image. \\\* The shadow of a long, dire night has lingered over us, the weight of the might of the ones who swore to serve, and to protect, seared into the small of our backs by their whips and their boots, the air heavy with the stench of the dread which drenches everything in their wake. ...
\\\* We woke up to a grey, watery mist rolling in the other day, a state of affairs which had me wondering for a few seconds if I had somehow ended up in good old Blighty. That was before the heft of air weighed down by 26-degree heat hit me in the face as I made my way to the bus stop. By the time we rolled into work, everything was shrouded in a thick, soupy, fog with visibility all but gone. It had all boiled away by 10 am though, with things returning to the way they always were: bone dry, warm with clear skies. Fog was not something I expected to encounter out here, although the roadsigns which show a 15km/hr speed limit in fog should have been a clue. ...
For The Sunday Muse Prompt # 128: ** When Neil and Buzz reached the top of the world their feet ensconced in the very dust from whence they came they left in awe at the fragility of things, at how the pale blue dot they left behind hung as though by an invisible thread, shimmering with the ethereal beauty of the light lent it by the sun. Butterflies fluttered on their insides, their hearts ...
Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash ** For all my flirtation with being prodigal, I have never quite managed to untether myself from the Pentecostal faith tradition, especially the hand-clapping, foot-stomping, tongue-blasting, frenzied version that is your typical Nigerian church. There have been times I have felt right at home in a subset of it - my Eket days, and latterly, my sojourn in the ‘Deen come to mind - but for the most part, it has always felt designed for the loud and the intense, to the detriment (and inadvertent?) exclusion of those of us who live on the more introspective side of the spectrum. Not being blessed with the gift of nimble footwork, or being particularly willing to apply myself to acquire the skills involved if I’m being honest, Thanksgiving Sundays in that tradition were a veritable minefield, partaken in with the threat of being stuck behind an overly expressive dancer an ever-present danger. ...
I have now been out here for just over eighty days, days which have sometimes felt like they have been punctuated by starts and stops. There were the two weeks of self-quarantining in which nothing seemed to happen, then a two day week occasioned by the Eid al-Adha holidays, and most recently a three day week for the National Day Holidays. Though somewhat an accident of timing, I have been grateful for the opportunities to break the monotony of work; up by 4 am, on a bus by 6 am, back home by 5 pm wash-rinse-repeat, and the gifts holidays sometimes bring, like a large tray of meat I got during the previous Eid holidays. ...
Photo by Lindsey LaMont on Unsplash ** I finally got round to migrating my contacts to my local phone, the process of downloading them from one account to a new one the last grudging act of acceptance at being here, a signal as it were of the finality of moving. It felt great to be able to do all I use my phone for - WhatsApp, podcasts, ebooks and all - from one device. What I did not bargain for was the trip down the rabbit hole of memory that exercise would be. ...