An African Elegy by Ben Okri

Author:Ben Okri
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448105656
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2022-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Living is a Fire

Living is a cross

That any one of the rock-faces

Comprehends.

We are drawn

To many seas.

We drown wholesomely

In the failures of confrontation.

The rain

Drenching

Our doorsteps

Has nothing to do

With the simplest desires

And lacerations

We bring

To the smallest acts

Of living.

The child

On the broken catwalk

Hearing the sounds of our hunger

Without understanding

Throws echoes back

To the earliest abandonments

Of love.

Minor devastations preceding

Horror

Resonate the ineffable.

The mothers that wake

At the slightest sound

And the fathers that

Smoke all night

And the rest of us who are

Vigilantes from the demons

Of oppressed sleep

Find at dawn the clearest

Images of our bewilderment.

Even the best things

Collapse beneath the weight

Of ignorance.

Living is a fire

That any one of the wave-lashes

Comprehends.

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