Minstrel

Twilight. Whites are darkening as the sun recedes beneath the shadow of soft flowers and tender thorn brushes. And you see night coming. And you feel night will in a little while be here with you. You feel its pervading grossness and overwhelming solitude.
Twilight. And you can tell night will come. The foreboding grips you like a hook to the silky neck of tonight’s dinner fish. The light is fainter than the darkest shades of a forgotten memory. You touch the receding hem of its garments, wistfully longing for more.
Twilight. Your face is drawn out, punctuated by lengthy chords. The sadness seeps in, its fangs wickedly gripping the vesicles that are called heart. The pain is biting, raw and wicked. You want to hold the noon a little bit longer but night is here as an offering for you- priest of the high lands and low marshes. Night is dressed like your sacrificial lamb in garbs of yellow, blue and orange, a willing sacrifice.
Twilight. The sound of the ogene resonates above the call of these African nights- chirpy butterflies and chirrupy hardwoods. Singer of song, take up your ukulele and dust the strings. Make your way to the sand patch closest to the night sky. Take a stone for your concert chair. Then strum and strum. Songs of night, singer of night, make for magical symphonies. Remember the moonlight dance in your native land, how the udu and ogene walk hand in hand to the broadside of the clearing bearing in their arms that dance you have searched for so long. That dance that is happily long on character and short on suspicion.
Twilight. Singer of song, twilight is your muse. And night is your habit. Take the offering willingly. On the altar of your sacrifice, let night be the offering for your songs. Singer of song, be thankful for the night. Be thankful for waning light and spent oil.