If ever all things are meant to be drunken
Peace and love would be the sweetest of all
For peace is a roped jar of raw honey
And love tastes better than freshly brewed wine.
In this then, all things will have a taste.
What so will be the taste of a tribute?
Pouring it out as words hurt the tongue with hard sensations
Much more drinking it in, with all its caustic pains and hurt.
A tribute will be that wine that is blandly bitter
But one desires to gulp it all in, and leave the cup empty.
To pay a tribute is to salute the treasure that once gave you essence
And if all things should give a sweet taste
This too, will give a taste that is bitterly sweet.
I long one day to take a cup of wine
Drink it and say,
“This tastes like a tribute.”
Tomorrow promises to bring forth a flower
So we can always sniff its scent and sense the sweetness of our stories.
Tomorrow promises to send forth warriors
To conquer those wide-spread rumours and chain them.
Tomorrow promises to come with a doctor
To heal the wounds time has inflicted
It has promised to usher in a new song with ecliptic lyrics
To soothe this ache of longing in our hearts, this hurt of demarcated memories.
All days have been the same colour of black
But tomorrow promises to come with a new colour
Maybe pink, or something like that.
Mother calls us up at the arrival of dawn
And urges our sleepy heads to pray
She calls it a renewal of a life-long pledge
So we kneel, willing our eyes to keep wake
As we join her to the journey above
Mother calls God by many names
It is her routine each morning, to wash His ego with new wine.
The wine and water of her devout tongue
For as many mornings as I can remember
She reminds God that she is a widow
And I wonder if He doesn’t know
Or if he has forgotten the day He signed Dad’s death
in His big book mother calls Scroll of Judgment
Usually the second cock crows when mother sets her prayer in motion
“Onye nwem, Lord and Master, behold this day”
Her declarations touch my heart
She speaks words of goodwill, thanks Him for a chance to see a day many longed for
Her words must touch his heart too
Except He is made of steel
To every word of her blessing on my brothers and me
Amen is our chorus
But then I wonder, the day she’ll die
Won’t she wake up in the morning like this
to pour upon us all the blessings of a new day?
Daniel Echezonachi Maxwell is a Nigerian and a student of the university of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was born in the South East of the country on 22nd September, 2006. A product of Adventist Model Schools and Sacred Heart College, he has a flair for literature and a number of unpublished works. His epistolary essay is forthcoming in Arena Of Wisdom, an anthology of the African Literary Summit, and his works have appeared in Sacred Voice Magazine and Words, Rhymes And Rhythm.
