And Our Rare Eagle Soars

And Our Rare Eagle Soars

(Tribute to Chinua Achebe)

•By Ken Okorie, attorney and editorial board member of USAfrica.

Special to USAfrica multimedia networks, and CLASSmagazine, Houston. @Twitter.com/Chido247, Facebook.com/USAfricaChido n Facebook.com/USAfrica247

Yes, he was an Eagle and high he soared, indeed very high

We love him, revere him, but did not think he could die

But here we are this Friday morn, as we reach for our die

But find it already cast, as we pant and our minds fly

In wonder where our Eagle hides

Mere Eagle he was not, but rare Eagle that soared highest of the skies

This Eagle we will miss, but so will all mankind low and high

For this rare Eagle our essence alone amplified

To the world’s all corners far and wide

I dare say die he did not for who says legends die?

O yes, legend indeed, for his is so rare a light

That flashes through the firmament in light and in night

Say, did you say Shakespeare, he is nigh

As is Charles the Dickens, and other legends so high

Joining in reception for their own, Chinua Achebe his name

Mandela, others send tributes mourning Achebe

Special to USAfrica multimedia networks, and CLASSmagazine, Houston. @Twitter.com/Chido247, Facebook.com/USAfricaChido n Facebook.com/USAfrica247

The death of the grand-father of modern African literature Prof. Chinua Achebe is drawing several messages from some of the world’s leaders, Nigeria’s president, his friends, contemporaries and writers.

: Achebe-n-Mandela. via USAfricaonline.com

A statement from the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa has been sent to the family of the late renowned writer Chinua Achebe. It conveyed, on behalf of the Chairperson, Board of Trustees and staff of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, “our condolences to the family of Prof. Chinua Achebe, a great African writer and thinker, who passed away on 21 March 2013 at the age of 82.”

Nelson Mandela, a friend of Achebe’s and an avid reader of his works, notably once referred to Prof. Achebe as a writer “in whose company the prison walls fell down” — a reference to Mandela’s 27 years in apartheid South Africa jail.

Both men are known for their principled positions on issues of justice, opposition to bigotry, discrimination and commitment to fairness to all persons and support for progressive pan Africanism. By Chido Nwangwu, moderator of the Achebe Colloquium (Governance, Security, and Peace in Africa) December 7-8, 2012 at Brown University, is the Publisher of USAfrica and first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com

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Long Live, CHINUA ACHEBE! The Eagle on the iroko.