River Ordeals; A boy serving God, served a bullet– Two Poems By Nigerian Writer, Ismail Yusuf Olumoh

River Ordeals

After Fadairo Tesleem

How can I paint the picture of grief? The pictures
in my brain are crystals, clear like limpid streams of
water: I slouched at the bank bird-dogging my father’s
feet tarried on the stones in his damp shirt. He proffered
his hand as if to wring me from death. I toed on a granite,
affrighted my legs nudging the water. His body, a tide,
billowed in the summer wind. His hand detached from
mine; another way of obeying the law of gravity. His body
drenched by water. I squealed into the air, but that saved
nothing, not even a soul. I was too young to lose another
deluxe thing again like màámí. Again, I pressed the loudest
key in my voice box, yet his legs & torso were beneath the river.
His hands squirmed in the air & water dribbled down his
mouth. I scuttled for help but the river had guzzled my father’s
body, heisted his soul & retched him two days dead. Nature
makes an orifice for grief to bedraggle us like how rain soused
the land. How will I express the redemption that touches my
heart & left an elephantine load—too heavy to lift? I stood
at the bank last night awaiting the river to return my father’s
soul. How would that be possible, when the water there
yesterday is not the same there today? Here I am, snuffing
my father’s body in every water I am to pour into my throat.

màámí — my mother

a boy serving God, served a bullet

“The death from which you flee will certainly overtake you,
then you shall be sent back to the Knower of the unseen
and the seen…”
{Quran 62, verse 8}

I traipsed beside the Maqbara
after the Jum’at prayer today, &
mimed two things into words:
a prayer for the dead, & a curse
for what dislodged a soul from
your body & who made us inhumed
you like a seed tombed in the ground,
only for grief to ripen our hearts.
My eyes, oceans of tears. My heart,
an abode of grief. today’s sermon
wobbled my heart, “The death from
which you flee will certainly overtake
you…” two silent bodies, obliged
the behest of their Lords: a bullet,
the greatest foe of the body, evanesced
like a matches flame smelt with a soy candle,
found a home in your body. another way
to moan this poem was the breaking news —
a dear friend, prostrating on his forehead,
nose, both hands, knees and all toes
touching the ground; a way of serving God.
he was served with hot metal, impinged
in his flesh & stop his breath. I uprooted
the grasses beside your grave,
wondering who will clear mine when
death overtakes me & heists my soul.

Maqbara — Islamic cemetery