Far-off Call : The Cry of the Writer’s Ink to an Anonymous Reader
O some day to come, it may be that time will bury my memory deep as the hidden sleep of those who lie in some forgotten churchyard;
but my judgment is that the future holds for me a fadeless crown of amaranth and gold.
O thou Anonymous Reader, when I, a bard whose graces are plenteous, and has a memory like the British Museum Library, and its material arranged as orderly,
When I, a bard, whose words sunset burst upon them with a variety of forms and colors like those the Divine Artist throws upon the evening sky : they are matchless words on birds and flowers and trees,
“Indeed no poet has given us more Nature poetry than he. In it all, one who reads is astonished at his wealth of simile and metaphors, at the music of his lines and the cooling freshness that delights on every page.” says the Scribes of Thebes, the men of the Scrolls of the Elders, the cavemen and Shamans.
When, I, a bard whose lyrics awakens the response in a common man’s breast, and makes him feel stronger for the day’s work and superior to the day’s faults and failures,
Strives in vain, to share my Art’s disgrace
And then I die like the unknown hero in silent rank beside my passion at the birth of dawn,
Without a wreath of laurel for a nation’s thanks,
You O Anonymous Reader, might have a careless glance upon my works!
So then, my dear reader, listen to my far-off call:
For thy sake I sit in the garden of books mating pen and paper with muse just so I could create a piece in our own image by weaving letters into words and words into figurative languages.
And now here it is, the broken thing, the created piece, happily waiting to be read but breathes in nostalgia like a patient peasant, suffering scorn and wrong, to labor in his people.
Why, O Anonymous Reader, do you make critics wonder why the skillful lowly bards write and write when no one seems to read,
When Fame and Success still refuse veneration,
And when the world gives but a wreath of weed?
O pity for thy writers show! When will thou appreciate the work of the ink?
So I may sleep a sleep remorse cannot affright ?
~Jamuel Yaw Asare
Copyright ©
Jamuel Yaw Asare
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