Nigerian-Turkish Nile University - Prof. Chimalum pays tribute to Late Chinua with Great Eagle poet

[NTNU]

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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)