The Prophet
(A tribute to late music icon Lucky Dube)
Odimegwu Onwumere
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Exasperated!
The glebe has become too hot, too cold,
twisted out of its natural shape.
Warrior!
The enemies have not succeeded,
they only succeeded in futility
just sending the dust back to the dust,
but the spirit still dwells
among your numerous cheerers.
The enemies didn't
succeed!
If they had succeeded
they would have won
lot of people who love you,
whose lives depend on you,
and the world would have been chaotic;
you still exists!
They only succeeded
cutting the tree from the top
not knowing it must germinate from the bottom,
the assailants, enemies of love, lovers of doom,
they didn't succeed, they must hide their faces in shame.
Like you admonished!
"You gonna reap what you sow......"
Those who abetted your decomposition
would not go free from such reaping.
Like the phoenix,
you would germinate
because they cut from the top;
people are singing your praise
as once a people's praise singer.
The world have taken
cruelty
as a modus operandi and call it freedom.
The world that was known,
is not the world that is seen.
The world is not getting younger
but its inhabitants act puerile,
not circumspect before endeavours.
The earth takes a year
to make a circuit round the sun
but man takes a blink
to burgle-out fellow man's breathe.
The world has gone gaga
and the psychiatrists are confused
because of the many lunatics.
Orison!
Now you lay in the down of sleep,
may the people die for the wrong
they have done; may the Lord keep your soul
from the crazy world you were living in.
Now men of the world
see from the darkness,
how so bright is the world?
When shall men forgive and forget?
Whitemen are coming together with Blackmen
But hatred isn’t separating from love.
They got your flesh
maybe to make them feel alright
but couldn’t get your spirit
which makes the world feel alright,
the daredevils are buffoons!
Lucky!
They thought that they have achieved their aim
but this single act heralds your stardom and name
to far beyond the west end than you were.
The world’s people moan and mourn,
you are all they have got,
by your inspirational lyrics abhorring absurdities.
Any hand in this act
must go
the same way they applied to you,
because you make people happy
and accompany people, even this poet,
you are all he had as a musician
but Almighty knows why it happened to you.
Lucky!
Wherever you go,
you are remembered, you are loved!
There is no place to call a home,
home now is in the mind.
Onwumere, a poet and an author, writes from Oyigbo, Rivers State, Nigeria.