The Festival of African Rain

The natives have (since the seventh month peeped through the lean crescent eye of the moon) worn cloaks of festivities. They dance the rites, squelching proudly in mud and green pools of water. On their heads are smouldering fires of corns And pears, and ingredients of a lush season. Behold their mothers’ breasts! Flopping tonelessly with life and ceremonial milk. The engaging flesh of birth. And their fathers’ ribs —bare and fractured— Like splinters from bamboos of white; strong bows of A fragmented hunting group. Their daughters dance with frenzied gaits, Insisting on frantic melodies. Drums throb on with the vim of restlessness. Flutes hasten with the speed of departing tunes. Ogele* sounds with the rhythm of fraternal bliss . . . . The village sons bend their torsos in tremulous dance steps, reluming low-burning ancestral fires. Breathe in now the image of a raging ceremony, Symbols of a rite, which hang on the rafters of a community, this seventh month of the yam calendar. *Metal gong