USAfricaPOETRY: FLAMES OF FREEDOM
BY Nkem Ekeopara
Special to USAfricaonline.com
The Music in my Heart
My honey-coated tunes to your ears
Come not from the twisting of my tongue
Nor from the mere movement of my mouth
It is from the heart, my heart
Pumping all its fluids, issuing all its feelings
In celebration of our interlocking embrace
Your sight, the smiles melt me
I glow in those sparkling eyes and shiny skin
And the fragrance, of evenly presence
Gives me the pitch
Of these booming baritones
You love to hear me singing
Mine! You are the music, it’s your song
You are the feelings
You are this preferred fragrance
You are the stimulating strings and notes
You are my love, my light and my life
You are the music in my heart
A Voice in the Wilderness
Let the endearing feathers of the doves
Still hovering over our skies
Stick through the wings of the hawks
And indenture the drifting clouds
Let there be precipitations
In our lives and our nations
To calm our palpitating hearts
And cool our heated lands
Let there be peace
Let there be love
Let there be life
And let there be a future for our world
At Last my Petals Unfurl
I caught the brilliance
Of the sunshine
Dispersing through the morning dews
Sprinkled on the pollen grains
I waited for this brilliance
In its great intenseness
To unlock the chlorophyll clusters
And unfurl my petals
I tilted towards the beam
Of the moonlight
Creeping through the clouds
Glowing on the flowing waters
I waited for this beam
In its full vision
To cut through the haze
And unfurl my petals
I waited for the zebra
To appear from behind the hills
I waited to see it
Leap through lion-infested grassland
I waited to feel its Cape gannet stripes
I waited to see it
Lend its bewitching charm
To the unfurling of my petals
I waited for the eagle
To return from its migration
I waited to see it
Soar through a threatening sky
I waited to touch its priced feathers
I waited to see it
Breathe its undying strength
To the unfurling of my petals
I waited through the dawns
And waited into the dusks
To hear these tremulous trebles and tenors
I sniffed through hedges and thickets
To perceive these intoxicating scents
I waited all these ages
Behold these dazzling stars
At last, my petals do unfurl
Paintings of One God
Seen the Anthills of the Savannah?
That’s one shade of the coloreds
Seen the Ebony of the Amazons?
That’s the other shade of the coloreds
I have never seen anyone like snow
I have never seen anyone like tar
I have never seen anyone like snow and tar
Some are a little off the Anthills
Some are a little off the Ebony
Most are between the Anthills and the Ebony
So, there is no White, no Black
We are all shaded-paintings of the Greatest Artist
We are all One
We are all creations of One God
•Ekeopara, a contributing writer for USAfrica The Newspaper and USAfricaonline.com since 1996, has published his latest collection of poems, Flame of Freedom, in Nigeria. Several of his essays are on the USAfrica archive/google/
