NO TEARS TODAY (for Chinua Achebe, passing...)
I
The great eagle has done its loop
Completed the laps around the ring of fires
We know love changes faces every day
But the love in your syllables will live for ever
The circle is complete today
The orbit of light is firm around the sun
I have no tears to shed for the eagle
The fountain of tears dried long ago
The eagle of double prowess :
The ginger legs mounted the iroko long ago
The piercing eyes dug into the horizon
And the voice belted a song beyond all prizes
Only the clan can reward the ikoro drums
The stoppers of all fountains of sorrow
Eagle of double prowess
You were the timbre of the ikoro drums
Warning the world of friends and foes
Our world looks broken but is not broken
But who can believe so simple a song
Great as it loops round the orbit of light
II
The sun welcomes you today
Great eagle of double prowess
Beyond all sunsets behind all twilights
Where the soul of the clan gives the grand prize
For your great beak of fire bore with pride
The gold-toned fronds of our sacred weal
Though love changes faces every day
The love in your syllables will live for ever
We fell down to rise again in your songs
Like the shards of a pot of great medicine
Our souls will endure in the ring of fires
Where your songs stride like you stride now
Toward the great hall of the ancestors
Where incandescent fires burn in the hearths
Beyond the seven rivers beyond seven forests
After the grand colonnade of ogilisi trees
III
Great eagle of double prowess
I have no tears for you today
We know love changes faces every day
But the love in your syllables will live for ever
Firm is your loop around the ring of fires
Bearing our souls round the orbit of light
Razing the great agonies of all the clan
For ever and ever with your beak of diamond
Beyond all distances our pains are all known
For our destiny joined the skein of your destiny
The war song was of chinualumogu
But the weal and woe are now shared by all
And the soul of the clan grants the grandest prize
For one whose battle cries root for the clan
Everlasting in echo and everlasting in glow
Melody marries incandescence for ever
And Justice streams toward the eternal sconces
Where the souls of great folks stay with stars
Great eagle now up there in double prowess
How can I weep for you today ?
With the soul of the clan and the blazon of the bard
Winging with one thread round the ring of fires...
Chimalum Nwankwo
Professor of English and World Literatures &
Writer-in- Residence
Nigerian Turkish Nile University
Abuja
NIGERIA
Via: Nigerian-Turkish Nile University, Abuja (NTNU)