NO EASY ROOST
ODIA OFEIMUN
Home, a flight of boulders
re-enacting the dire and ferment
of rhythms from which
you have always sought escape;
—the sadness of slouching mothernaked
in the rain of your muzzled wishes—
home;
Where, in the dark reaches
of a past-drenched will,
you find a motive for counting the stars;
you write a psalm of untrod futures:
“let these grains earthed in sundowns
sprout in the morning, virile and fruitful,
“And these pains, this aura
of impertinent failures encroaching on lives,
lives, that have floundered in ovens
of incessant strivings, O Fire
realize the defeated in the victory
of their offsprings.”
Editor’s note: First published in Nigeria Magazine, Sunday, March 1, 1970. Source: Archiving.