Monday, November 7, 2016

Stephen Okereke Micheal writes



UNIVERSAL SICKNESS

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Eve begot the whites and the blacks
In a hall whose roof
Was coated with a sky blue plate
Hanging at the peak of the earth
And the wall started to end at infinity.

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We live in this hall
Where fruits swirl at the tips of the trees
Conjuring mockery at the lazy brats
Whose muscles smile at the sight of sleep,
Tongues wagging and splashing excuses
And eyes myopic to gold
Who lay waste at their finger tips
Waiting for the ones who can till.

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The whites and the blacks
Shouldered the cross of equality
Walking the slippery slope of the universe
With hands clutching on arms, fighting poverty.

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Poverty is a disease, not of the blacks alone
But a universal sickness,
For those that are weak in mind.
 
 Eve by Peter and Sue Hill; steel armature, clay, plants; installed at The Eden Project, Cornwall UK
 Eve --  Peter and Sue Hill

1 comment:

  1. Eve (Ḥawwah, "living one" or "source of life") was the first woman, created from the rib (or side) of Adam, the first man, who lived in the garden of Eden until they were expelled for disobeying God. Rabbi Joshua imagined that "God deliberated from what member He would create woman, and He reasoned with Himself thus: I must not create her from Adam's head, for she would be a proud person, and hold her head high. If I create her from the eye, then she will wish to pry into all things; if from the ear, she will wish to hear all things; if from the mouth, she will talk much; if from the heart, she will envy people; if from the hand, she will desire to take all things; if from the feet, she will be a gadabout. Therefore I will create her from the member which is hid, that is the rib, which is not even seen when man is naked." Eve was sentenced to a life of sorrow and travail in childbirth .Although Genesis 5:4 says that Eve had ther children, only three were named, Cain (Qayin), Abel (Heḇel), and Seth (Šet); Abel was slain by Cain, who is sometimes regarded as the ancester of the Negroes (because he was "marked" by God for his actions), and Seth was the ancestor of Noah (and thus of all of mankind, since only Noah and his family survived the great flood that destroyed the rest of humanity); traditionally, Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth became the ancestors of the Semites, Egyptians (Africans), and Japhetites; his grandsons Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan the forefathers of the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites and Canaanites [Canaan's sons included Heth, Jebus, and Amorus, from whom came the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites], and later descendants also fathered various nations, such as Eber. Eve's name was derived from Chawat, the title given to the goddess Asherah, wife of El, mother of the elohim from the first millennium BCE, but her story echoed a Sumerian myth in which the goddess Ninhursag created Edinu, a beautiful garden full of lush vegetation and fruit trees in Dilmun, and made her lover/half-brother Enki their caretaker. His assistant, Adapa, fed several of them to Enki, thus enraging Ninhursag. She caused pain in Enki's rib ("ti, which also meant "life"), but the other deities persuaded her to relent in her punishment. So she created a new goddess, Ninti ("Lady" + "ti") to cure him. Much later, Platon (in his "Symposium") claimed that humans originally had four arms and legs and a head with two faces, but Zeus, fearing their power, split them into two separate parts and condemned the to spend their lives in search of their other halves; when one half meets the other half of himself, they fall into passionate love (which Platon defined as "the desire and pursuit of the whole”): “Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.” Some Gnostics equated Eve with Zoe (Life). In conventional Christianity, Eve is prefigures Mary, mother of Jesus who was sometimesreferred to as "the Second Eve." Although Eve is not a saint's name, the traditional name day of Adam and Eve is celebrated on December 24 , the day before Christmas, in Germany, Hungary, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Lithuania. The Qur'an related that Allah created "one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women" (Surah Al-Nisa 4:1), but some hadiths follow the Jewish tradition that she was created from Adam's rib.

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