Drums on Exit

Now that the drums have retired and the songs have left out mouths, what shall we do? We prepared our dance for the arena. But the drums would not let us. They beat a different tune. And we could not dance to it. We opened our mouths to sing but the songs we prepared left us and came out as they pleased: in starts, stops and dissociated rhythms.
Franctically, we tried to make the songs come out right and hoped the drums would follow suit. But try as we might they refused. The drums continued their tune and the songs their dissociated rhythms. Then we tried to follow the songs and dance to the tune of the drums. But the song started changing song and the drums kept changing beat and tempo. We found that when our mouths opened to sing the next line the songsong would cease the singing and our legs would still be going up when the drums would abruptly cease. Our struggle to adapt became more awkward than our initial confusion.
And while we were still struggling to dance the dance of the drums and sing to the music of the song, the song and drum ceased. Then they left us standing naked before the gaping crowd and walked away into the bend of the sky. The mother drum led them from behind. While the song and drums were walking away the dance also left us and joined them.
We looked, tearful and fearful, at the teeming crowd who were yet to find out where the music they came to see had gone. We knew they would all leave and we would be left totally alone.
When the music fades, make your own songs. This my friend has the belly of an antelope- the best of drum skins. The other has hands as long and limber as cane from the iroko. We will have his hand for drumsticks and my friend the antelope belly for the mother drum. With some of our mouths drawn into O's we will have ogenes. And although song has left us, we will sing to the melodies of our hearts. And while we have our friends for drum, ogene and song, those of us left will take our stand in the middle of the arena and dance the dance that we carry within.
Now that the drum and song that should have been melody for the dance have all left you, you can either stand and weep or do as my friends and I did. And don't think we were fortunate. You also have friends with the antelope bellies, drumstick hands and canoe heads.
Sing your song, hit your tune, create your dance. When nothing is left and everything is lost, create something out of nothing. What you've lost can never be greater than what you have. When you lose a lot you have a lot of opportunities to succeed a lot. When nobody is cheering you can cheer yourself the loudest. After all, you have friends with the hands of a cymbal.

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.