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Bamboo
Grant me rest under your lissome stems
Let me hide from the raindrops — shiny globules
That drip with tropical hauteur,
Rain that harms the ribs with cold rebukes.
Welcome me within your greenish lair, from
Your cane roots to your starry leaves —I insist on visiting
In your prime, so fresh with dew and so green, like
The envy in the gritty eyes of singed composts,
When waving rays of the shifting sun
Bathe the narrow venues formed by adjoining stems
Up, up and up the stairs and dome of the jungle.
I pray to shoot up with you and befriend the skies.
Oh, such elevation!
Fill my gourd with green wine;
Make me drunk with the spewing colours of life.
My heart is open to receive light —from misty dawn to
Dusk crowned with your blessing.
Let it rain on, I pray.
My palms are spread out like your leaves — I borrow the
Innocence of your frondescence.
Carve me flutes from your nodes, and, from them
Raise the cadences for summons, to be accompanied by
Drums fashioned by hands greased by the gifts of
The forests. . . .
Raise the joy, the frenzy, the tone of the ceremony
Raise, raise . . . upheave them
To royal heights — such as yours.
Copyright ©
Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
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