The Voice of the Calling Bird

He calls and sings, and then he sings and calls. I hear him calling every morning; long before the first stroke of the yellow brush on these African skies I now gaze at. After the break of dawn, he keeps calling. He looks for a lofty platform, climbs like a celebrity in prime and lets out his voice, struts with the bravado of a he-goat, and lets his fellows take up the call. One look at him and you can tell even winners of the Grammies were never this cocksure!

Voices in my head. Clear and glinting
Like liquid mercury
The voice of the irreverent deity, this song bird
Sings of this home I dare not hope for
In tones I dare not hear
For the smothering smoothness of it all!

Calling bird.
The drums and the flute
Accompany your single duet
Music for my soul. Voice that calls me home
Teach my heart
To trust
In the soft colours that tell
Of this winter harvest.

When the entire neighbourhood has heard his voice and that of his primetime companions, he walks away. He is oblivious to the fact that he is the symbol of life, that his call is the sign that this light will not fade when we get to the end of the tunnel. He calls us to rouse and march into the darkness, confident that morning has come although all we see is night. And when we heed the croon of this arrogant caller, sooner than later the light surprises us, whisks us too quickly from night.
Only stupid farmers quarrel with the calling bird. They trust him to know when morning wakes, although they know too well he cannot define time. Only foolish hearts quarrel with the songs of their hearts and refuse to dance to their unseemly melodies.

Found

I took stock and found I had cause to give thanks. Faith has found me, finally. The journey isn't ended. It's not just starting either. And it's a journey that has taught me more than I can tell.
Faith found me, a knife under my pillow and a note explaining the death on my phone. It was there faith found me. Faith pointed out the old father to me. He had failed uncountable times but he trusted faith and rose to the heights beyond the sky. Then faith showed me the condemned robber who gained the King's pardon. Faith told me hope remained, that the minute after midnight is as dark as midnight, although it is already morning. Faith taught me not to fear night but to embrace it as a phase. Faith taught me to dream again, encouraged me that dreams still come true. Faith showed me night is good. That the dream comes before the work. Faith pushed me to dream and dream again.
When faith found me, my songs had ceased. They were stopped in my mouth before ever they were voiced. And the joy of my moonlight dance was swallowed up in the sad sunshine of those dreary days. Faith found me, my head under water, the water in my eyes, over against my nose, pressing against my chest. Faith found me in the valley beyond the stuffy Sahara. In the valley beyond, the globules circled my head and all I saw was the pure terror of a soul destined to live yesterday.
Faith found me then taught me to dream and to live; to sing and to dance; to hope and be grateful; to laugh! Because I had perfected the laugh without the heart, the laughter of teeth. Faith taught my heart to smile and to laugh, taught my eyes to dance.

Finding Faith

Ancient Israel had a feast called the Feast of Booths. It was also called the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast marked their exodus from Egypt to Canaan. God ordered that they make tents and live in them for a whole week. It was supposed to serve as a reminder of what He did for them during their forty-year wilderness journey.
The feast of Tabernacles was instituted to keep the nation thankful by keeping their memory alive. The feast was purely a celebration of what God did for them. They kept the miracles in mind and gave offerings of thanksgiving. They had other feasts as well. All of them were celebrations of different things God did for them at different stages in their nationhood.
Stock-taking is a sure path to faith. Every good business owner knows the necessity of taking stock. It’s your way of knowing what you have and the state of your goods. It tells you how much goods have been sold, how many are left, how many are spoilt etc.
Before you whimper and whine again, take out time to take stock of what you have. It will put things in perspective. Remember prisons are only mind games. Take out time right now to take stock. What do you have? How many wildernesses have you passed? What good things do you have? Can you read this? You have reason to celebrate. Can you hear someone read it to you? That is more reason to celebrate! Do you understand what you read? You are the most blessed human on earth. We pay attention to vanities and thus forsake the mercies we have received.
Are you short on faith? Celebrate the victories you’ve gotten. They are proof you’ll keep succeeding. And are you sick and tired of some whatsoever? Doctor says to take pills of thanksgiving. Take it in large quantities. There is no overdose. The more the better!
Listen, climb a good tree after reading this. Get to the very top. Then let out a loud shout. Doctor says so too. It’s called a victory shout and is guaranteed to destabilize heart attack. Then spend the rest of today smiling at yourself. If you don’t have a glass of wine for a toast then you can jolly well make do with water! Congratulate yourself. Get yourself a gold medal that would make Usain Bolt jealous. Remind yourself of the tough times you’ve been through. Give thanks for the hurdles you’ve scaled. There is no medal as beautiful, no drug as powerful, no therapy as cleansing as the attitude of thanksgiving to God. Get it today. It gives the past a definition, the present a meaning and supplies hope to the future.
I end this exercise and find out I didn’t find faith. Faith was never lost. She has always been closer than my worries let me see. And she has been tapping me on the shoulders every now and then. The little rays of rainbow sun I see every morning, the whispers of the wind behind my ears, the sweet smell of new rain on the sun baked earth, the taste of this African dawn- crying cockerels, cold warmth, snoring song birds- it was all faith’s song to me. It was faith nudging me to spend one more minute admiring the new shoot on the tree stump by the road. It was faith that suggested to me that even cut tree grow up. It was faith that told me rain is the promise that the harvest will not waste, that the future is a blessed reality. Faith sang to me yesterday the songs of freedom.
Faith found me, when I took stock.

Poetic License

Means I can right nonsense, even wright a poem.
It is freedom
To place my comma. where the period, ought
To be grammatically incorrect
Disrespectful of concords
Unmindful.

Is the freedom of the poet to defy gravity and other such law
Without being tagged offender
Dragged unceremonically before
the court of critics- eternal guardians of rote
The gruff nose and sharpened pencil of the high judges
Ever ready to pass “Guilty!”

Is the leeway the poetry always sought to step out of the box. And step sidewards
Circle, Exclaim, Showers. Doodle,Enthuse,Think

Is the reason I will wright this
I shall call such jargon poetry.

Onye Akwukwo

There are many modes of expressing thought, this is dedicated to books.
I fell in love with Maths as a kid. I have wondered what the attraction was because I loved English too. And with all due respect, English has not always been the African’s best friend. Ever heard a grown man shouting, “My frem, pay me my lent! A bag of lice is now 20 tauzin naila. Evn dorrar have lise na brack market.” Don’t blame the man, pity English for making herself an international caricature.
I’m still in love with Maths. Many of my fellow lovers broke up with her, accusing her of being difficult. They say she is not understanding and has grown distant with time. I disagree because now I love Physics too. I used to think it was just the logic I liked. Now I know it’s more than that. It’s also about the pictures and the patterns. Where you see meaningless numbers, I see beautiful patterns. Where you see formulas, I see art- shapes and drawings. I see thought captured in those numbers. Literature captures feelings with words. Physics may not be such a good talker. He captures those same feelings with numbers. Art is very much like science. The major difference between both is their respective mediums of expression.
Books are fascinating. By the way, books are generally divided into history, philosophy and science. I think the greatest inventions of all time are the mediums for recording and transmitting thought. Apart from speech, the other media are written and visual. Books, whether print or virtual, are one of humanity’s greatest. A little digression, I beg your pardon. The imagination has been called the greatest nation on earth. The reason is that a man who has never owned a bicycle tire can be Bill Gate’s heir in his dreams. It’s really a matter of perspective. A vibrant imagination will colour reality the way he/she wants. That’s why children are always so happy. They imagine the useless patch of sand behind the house as potential castles befitting of Arthur and Lancelot. Give them a minute and your little shack has become Japan in the time of the Samurais. And in case you don’t have swords, don’t worry. They will improvise. Your spoons just gained employment! Every expressed thought, no matter how stupid, is a product of the imagination. In these expressions of thought we have the opportunity of capturing the greatest and the best of humanity.
Reading a good book is a lot like talking to a wise best-friend. It’s the writer’s heart speaking to yours, like a heart-to-heart tete-a-tete. That’s the attraction of art- sculptures, paintings, photographs etc. it’s also the attraction of literature and science. Books speak like your TV does. They get you to converse with the writer, to open up your mind and see pictures rather than words; patterned decor rather than a bunch of numbers. They bring you to the shore by the sea of imagination. Their aim is to help you see the writer’s world and the look further and find yours. That was how Einstein found Relativity. He stood toe to toe with Maxwell at the clearing by the sandy woods, and then he looked.
Read a book. Learn.

Puss and the Queen

She got to London and she saw the Queen. It was a dream come true! She was given a tour of Buckingham Palace. She saw the portraits of all the rulers of England from the 10th century. Finally she got to see the official living quarters of the King Henry, the Tudor. Puss had heard so much about him.
Puss got so many autographs she had to ship them down to the country separately. The weight of the autographs exceeded the weight of goods any aircraft would allow. Her shipment of autographs would have landed long ago but the ship suffered a mishap. And of course the stupid deckhand felt a cat's luggage was no use. So they threw them overboard. Puss contacted the local Animal Rights' group about the incident and they promised to take it up. She would have shown all the doubters at the monthly Lagos Pussy cats Meeting! She had been so prepared for it. Her pictures alone filled an entire suitcase! That's why Puss had to make do with the few pictures she came back with.
Her greatest moment was the minute she got a snapshot of the queen. Unfortunately she couldn’t snap with the queen. Some over-zealous security agent felt a cat had no business taking pictures with the queen. The impunity! Puss nearly spat at him but she remembered her latest regimen for dealing with anger. She took many deep breaths, took a walk round the gardens of the palace then walked back. By that time the Queen had stepped into her study and couldn’t be disturbed.
Puss still keeps her favourite pictures from that journey hanging round the house. It is a pity rats have gotten so clever and determined these days. They nearly ate off the Queen’s head from her favourite picture. Thank goodness, the head was only partially chopped off. A good observer will still see it’s the Queen. That was when Puss decided to carry the picture in her wallet. It’s safer that way. She just tries to always avoid the rain always.
After liaising with the local school authorities, they approved Puss' travelogue. It details her journey to London to see the Queen. The book quickly became a worldwide bestseller. A nursery rhyme about her going to see the queen also came out of the book. Puss was the cat who had gone to London to see the Queen! She was the cat that made history! The newspapers and magazines sought her for some weeks. Her pictures covered front pages of big magazine issues. And like everything that is news, she finally became olds.
The Benue still flows into the Niger and the Niger into the Atlantic but the world no longer remembers the Pussy cat that went to London to see the queen. It’s not a tragedy. It is just that “celebrity” is a dubious word. The world celebrates what now is. While Puss was celebrating going to London to see the Queen, the world went ahead of her, crowned a new Queen, and then crowned a Prince and King in her stead. Then the world evolved and made palaces museums and tourist centres. It was a harsh deal for a Puss intent on hanging on to old glory.
The Pussy cat Association finally decided on new measures to gain the world’s attention again. They will send someone to go see the president. If that doesn’t get any attention, they will form a militant group and go on strike. Their strike will be in place till the world hears them again. No pussy will chase, eat a rat or run from a dog while the strike lasts. I totally concur with them. At least cats going on strike is NEWs!

Pussy cat, Pussy cat, where have you been?

She has been to London to see the queen. I doubt she made it through. My concern wasn’t whether she got to see the queen. My concern was what she wanted to see the queen for. That kind of insight bothers me because I wonder if I can still wonder like that rather than wish to be the pussy that went to London on such a mission. Many would gladly become cats if it mean going to London to see the queen.

It must be a mighty big deal being a queen, isn’t it? You can’t smile when you want to because someone is there to record it. You can’t be in a molue laughing at the story about Mr. President’s last visit to the zoo, that time he ate all the bananas. You’ll never hear the story of how FIFA banned India because they beat Nigeria 99-0 using jazz. The ball always turned to a lion when the Indians shot it towards our goal. Our goalie ran for his dear life. Your instructors will tell you fabricated stories about Indians not playing soccer. You need to meet my dad! He’ll smash all their theories. I bet you never ran around naked in the rain and you never tied your mum’s wrapper on your neck, flying around like Superman. You also believe aeroplanes don’t throw down sacks of cash. You really need to meet Obiozor. an airplane threw him a sack of cash. That's why the village witches kept troubling him till he lost it all. You didn’t throw stones at a lizard or chase a chicken till you were out of breath. You were never chased by a stray ekuke dog. Sadly, you never wondered at the remote control. How did such a little thing have so much power over those large TVs? And you never shouted “oku NEPA” when electricity was restored, not knowing it was “UP NEPA” others shouted.
I wish I could remember the time I mixed garri and sugar then carried it around in my pockets, eating at intervals. Then there was the time I disgraced my class teacher. I wish I could remember it as well. I was fresh from the village and couldn’t speak a word in English. And here was my class teacher taking advantage of the little kids in my class. She actually claimed she knew everywhere. The naïve fools kept asking her about streets in Lagos. I was incensed. She didn’t know anywhere. When I could hold it no longer, I burst out in Igbo, “Aunty, i ma Ezi-igwe?” Ezi-igwe is the junction to my house in the village, more than 700 kilometers away. Those kids laughed me to scorn for being a bush boy, but I won. Aunty did not know Ezi-igwe! I was so scared of those kids. They spoke English as easily as I ate onugbu soup. And whenever I wanted to sit, they would draw the chair away and I would land flat on the ground. Sweet terror, it was Biodun that did that. My pain was that Wunmi laughed at me too. If I could remember those stories, I would share them with you. You really missed childhood. Did you ever marvel at iced water? How water ended up stone after hours in the freezer? I stopped taking my tea in the mornings when I discovered it. I kept it in the freezer. Then after school I had iced tea to lick! I’ll have to ask my Kaodili my big bro. I didn't know we were cousins then because I didn't know the meaning of cousin. If he remembers we’ll tell it all to you.
Did you ever dream of riding limos and living in big houses? Did you ever fly a kite, watching it till it was out of sight? Did you ever dream you were a kite? Did you ever pray for rain so you wouldn’t go to school the next day because you were sure the wicked French teacher would flog your buttocks red?
Did you ever dream of some things you couldn’t have because mum would never buy them for you? That’s the fun of childhood. You get to imagine. You create the things you can’t have. You just pretend you have them, then play with them and all is well.