Enomma,
my epitome of beauty.
today, before god and man,
i have refined my rhythm
in order to honour your name
My ocean of joy,
my sunshine,
please dance for me -
that African dance - once danced
on the soil of rich harvests...
slowly, yes very slowly my woman.
Forget the jealous eyes.
No one can ever be like you!
behold, I've cuddled
the gifted drum in my arms -
squeezing out its sweet nectar
to your taste -
my love, just the way your waist loves it
Please be possessed by its demons...
Let loose of that dance
that once tricked the moon
to tarry into morning!
Enomma,
my fetching plumeria,
the mandarin fish that
feeds the eyes with honey
Please dance for me...
Ignore the winks of others.
Your lover is here for you.
I, at this moment, this day,
have eaten your apple of love:
please let me
remain a sinner in love for eternity.
Enomma,
my southern tulip.
My favourite song
Please before this august gathering -
filled with love and palm wine,
I, of the Iseyen clan,
do humbly ask for
your pretty hands
in marriage...
*notes
This is an African chant song.
Enomma is a maiden's name in Ibibio.
The African tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata) is the "king of flowering trees." Native to tropical Africa, it is a member of the bignonia or trumpet vine plant family (Bignoniaceae), the only species in its genus. In its native habitat (centering around Lake Victoria but grown as a cultivated ornamental in tropical climates), it flowers throughout the year and grows to 50 ft. or more. The foliage is composed of 18-in. pinnately compound leaves with between 7 to 19 oval leaflets, each four to six inches long. New leaves are a bronzy color but become dark green above and paler beneath. Flowering is both conspicuous and dramatic, with football-sized flower clusters produced at the ends of every branch during warm weather. These unusual flower clusters are composed of many velvety brown claw-like buds that split open vertically as the 5-in-long, broadly trumpet-shaped flowers emerge in succession. Fully expanded, the mature flowers are elaborately scalloped and picoteed, and the flower color is typically an intense red-orange (though there is also a golden yellow-flowered variety). Every flower bud is pressurized with a watery nectar as it expands; when squeezed it can shoot liquid 10 ft or more. When fully open, the frilly flowers, make colorful hanky-like pocket ornaments.
ReplyDeleteIbio-ibio means "short" or "brief." The Ibibio people have lived in the Cross River area of southeastern Nigeria for hundreds of years. They are related to the Anaang, the Efik, Igbo, and Oron peoples. They were a self-governing confederation until the British colonizers included them in Eastern Nigeria. During the Nigerian Civil War, Eastern Nigeria was split into three states, with the Ibibio mainly in the Southeastern State (later renamed Cross Rivers State); but part of Eastern Nigeria went to Cameroon in a 1961 plebiscite, thus dividing these peoples between two counties. In 1987, the Ibibio-dominated Akwa Ibom State was carved out of Cross Rivers State.
ReplyDeleteThe mandarinfish or mandarin dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus, from the Greek "syn," meaning "together" and "chiropus" meaning "hand-foot" and the Latin word for "splendid") is a small, brightly colored fish native to the Pacific, ranging approximately from the Ryukyu Islands south to Australia. The common name, "mandarinfish," comes from its extremely vivid coloration, evoking the robes of an Imperial Chinese mandarin, but it is also called the mandarin goby, green mandarin, striped mandarinfish, striped dragonet, green dragonet, and psychedelic mandarinfish. It is one of only the two vertebrate species known to have blue coloring due to cellular pigment, the other being the closely related psychedelic mandarin or LSD-fish (S. picturatus). [The similarly named mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi), properly known as the Chinese perch, is distantly related. Native to the Amur River basin and other rivers in China, its back is yellow, green, or brown, with many irregular black spots and patches. It is a very popular as food in China and appears in many poems and books.]
ReplyDeleteIn "Flight," Doris Lessing wrote, "Her hair fell down her back in a wave of sunlight, and her long bare legs repeated the angles of the frangipani stems; bare, shining-brown stems among patterns of pale blossoms." Plumeria is a genus of flowering plants in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae, native to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is related to the oleander, and both flowers possess an irritant;, contact with the sap may irritate eyes and skin. Its flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths, which inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar. The genus is named in honor of the 17th-century French botanist Charles Plumier, and the plant's common name, "frangipani," comes from a 16th-century Italian marquess who invented a plumeria-scented perfume. In Persian, the name is "yas" or "yasmin," in Hinda "champa" [in his "Indian Sernade," Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, "The champak odours fail / Like sweet thoughts in a dream"],in Marathi "Chafa," in Telugu "deva ganneru" (divine nerium), in Manipuri "khagi leihao," in Tagalog "kalachuchi," in Cantonese "gaai daan fa" (the "egg yolk flower" tree). The Chinese also sometimes call it by the Thai-derived name, "leelawadee." In Hawaii it is "melia", in Sri Lanka "araliya" or the "temple tree," in Indonesia, "kamboja," in French Polynesia "tiare." P. rubra is the national flower of Nicaragua, where it is known as "sacuanjoche," and P. alba is the national flower of Laos, where it is known as "shampa." In South and Southeast Asia it is believed to provide shelter to ghosts and demons, and Malays associate its scent with a vampire, the pontianak. In modern Polynesia, women wear it over the right ear if seeking a relationship and over the left if they are taken.