I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE A POEM ABOUT MY FATHER— HOW HE CONVERSES WITH HIS BACKBONE

The day breaks in my father’s eyes

I see the sun rising in his Blepharon;

Due West, his tears rose down the hills

of Igbeti & due East they poured into the

waterfalls of Kainji. It is morning and father

still holds the snuff box— his eyes brimmed

with softness and stiffness as if to pour,

it is the bones of yesterday ground into

a powder. Father will take a handful and

make a wish unto heaven. With his tongue

full of bore holes—knotted. He would lie across

the space bending to crumble Earth between

 his fingers, his hairs— a stiff in the thighs of

yesterday. Last night, I heard him conversing

with his backbone;

He raised sand up above his shoulders,

lowered his lower abdomen, buttoned his

voice that roars the skies and the stars

at nights, forcing out some generosity

out of his wrinkled face and knelt before

the monsoon sky. He straightened his

back, his gaze was set straight at the

nakedness of the sun, like baby’s & said, Ludà ma wéndi sé gó

HOW TO START A POEM

I don’t know how to start this poem, the whole of me is quivering, I fear this poem may lead to other poems. I wish to write, but my hands are still learning the subtle rustle of grief, my phalanges are gripped in the clutches of agony, here grief is an evergreen plant that maintains its greenness till the foliage grows. My Cousin brought an assignment to me, it reads;

1.  list examples of abstract nouns? I took the pen and scribbled my brother, my brother & brother till the white lines became faded like my father’s grey hairs that formed a forest in his youthful days.

2. What are your dream? I answered, Lilly gardener. Lilly is the flower we sprout on graves, because here we worship the land, we offer sacrifices everyday with our heads and seek company in metaphors, they bricked our hopes. Even our songs, we sang them as dirges.

She shook her head and returned with her book.  What she doesn’t know is that, Grief is like the water hyacinth— stubborn and resistant. It grows and fills our arms with darken-broken images.  We were taught how to carry the stars in our darkest palms, watching our tomorrow swimming in the ocean’s depth. But what does she know? She is just a ten year old with bountiful wishes that filled the sky. I don’t know how to tell her, that here —

one dies before wishes live— that wishes are like lullabies in the mouth of the widowed. Wishes and wants are like  breeze lost in the ruins of time. Wishes are the last shook that made my brother into shapes.

But as I looked at her, I saw the pieces of hope levitating in her. Maybe this chapter of life will one day go with the thunderous storm. Just maybe, one day I will be able to sit and begin a poem rightly.

BIO

Adamu Yahuza Abdullahi is a budding poet from Kwara state, Nigeria. He is currently running his degree program at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria. He works as a campus journalist at PEN PRESS, UDUS. He is a year three student of Botany. He is obsessed with writers and what they write. When he under thinks, he reads; and when he over thinks, he writes. He is passionate about his ancestral hometown, Kemanji, where he writes about. He bagged NAKS (a student Union body) award of the best poet of the year, 2021. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in the Kalahari review, synchronized chaos and Borgu book club. He can be reached at adamuyahutha@gmail.com. He tweets at AdamuYahuzaabd2.