In your silence
..... For Ronke
Fapohunda...
I’ve lost my ears
To your rancorous silence,
A stone. I shed no tears,
Lest I bear summer’s
consequence.
Graves
Echo in octaves,
Sleepers murmur;
I have my staff paper, but
your music I cannot score.
Dots, dashes,
Notches, lozenges:
They’ve become conventional
again,
I’ve gotten used to summer
rain.
The reindeer still crosses
the ford;
I still remember how to
find God;
I find him even now through
your cold body,
Every curve a testimony of
his glory.
Oh, forgive this Dante
speaking from hell,
Of a heaven where angels
dwell,
But sometimes reality
speaks no language,
She only gestures, grunts
and grimaces.
Do we need a tongue to
express change,
Or a voice for the joy the
sun’s kiss plants on flowers’ faces?
I know how ants tell truth
from falsehood,
I don’t need a diviner to
tell when the nymph is in the mood.
Don’t call, don’t ping,
Heavens will fall if the
phone does ring,
Don’t chat, don’t text,
Hell will rip my heart, and
then what next?
Graves are temples,
mourning is ritual,
But don’t bury me just to
mask the odor of putrescence;
Woman what we share is
beyond the physical,
The taste on my lips is
valid evidence.
Rio, this bond is beyond spiritual,
Oh, mother I hear God
still, I still hear him even in your silence.
