Tade Ipadeola
Songbird
Songbird
So the world became a field
Of birds always rising into flight,
A swarm of starlings and ravens
Restless as a run of frantic locusts….
And I heard the songbird’s call, sonorous
To birds of all seasons to converge
With their chorus of mellow harmonies
And their music of manifold melodies
Plural as the provenance of proverbs -
Sang the songbird: share my perch
Upon this mount of visions
Fellow me with songs beyond haruspications;
Come, share with me your own songs
And let’s incline our ears to each other.
So sang the songbird to the conference,
Her luminous voice a resounding echo
Of her rich fluorescent feathers.
And I heard a chorus rising where birds rose
A moving chorus meant for birds
Of every plumage:
‘The world is a wondrous egg
A wondrous egg, a wondrous egg
The world is a wondrous egg
And it sits on a nest of words’
Words…. mules of meaning, Atlas
That shoulders the planet, let
Me have you in my pouch, not around
My neck, when called upon to account,
Let me be found busy in your loom
With strand on strand of substance.
Words. Wild as waterfalls, you cascade
With the heat of summer in rap songs
And tonight, at a night club in Baghdad,
Only the wise will heed your cautious
Portents. Words ! You roll through winter
In stadium after stadium, powering anthems
Of soccer lovers in deep play, you never
Walk alone, you lead the dance across
The fecund face of the moon. Words,
Your tenderness turns into a gardener
Of flowers on the field of Kigali and Darfur,
Your hands free caged birds in Seoul and Pyongyang.
The songbird sang through harmattan and rain
Of the wondrous, wondrous egg,
The starlings and ravens chorused
Of the nest that holds the egg.
Their voices is a stream
Running over cool stones, singing:
‘The world is a wondrous egg
A wondrous egg, a wondrous egg
The world is a wondrous egg
And it sits on a nest of words.’
