African Easter By Abioseh Nicol

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African Easter

By

Abioseh Nicol

III Easter Morning

THE AFRICAN INTELLECTUAL:

Ding dong bell 

Pussy's in the well.

Another day....

Sleep leaves my opening eyes slowly Unwillingly like a true lover.

But this day is different. 

The lonely matin bells

Cut across the thin morning mist, 

The glinting dew on the green grass, 

The cool pink light before the heat of day,

The sudden punctual dawn of tropic skies, 

Before the muezzin begins to cry, 

Before the pagan drums begin to beat.

Easter morning.

But still for me

The great rock remains unrolled.

Within my wet dark tomb 

Wounded peace remains embalmed, 

The pricking thorns still yet my crown.

Easter morning.

Where are my ancestral spirits now? 

I have forgotten for many harvests 

To moisten the warm earth

With poured libations.

Where are you now, O Shango? 

Two-headed, powerful

Man and woman, hermaphrodite 

Holding your quivering thunderbolts 

With quiet savage malice;. Brooding over your domain,

Africa, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Slavery of mind is unabolished. 

Always wanting to punish, never to love.

I have turned away from you 

To One who stands 

Watching His dying dispossessed Son 

Shouting in Aramaic agony

Watching the white Picasso dove 

Hovering above the Palestinian stream 

Watching and waiting, sometimes 

To punish, always to love.

Sleep confuses my tired mind 

Still the bell rings 

I must up and away. 

I am a good Churchman, now. 

Broadminded, which means past caring 

Whether High or Low. 

The priest may hold the chalice, 

Or give it to me. It depends 

On where he trained.  I only mind 

That he wipes the wet rim 

Not to spread dental germs. 

A tenth of my goods 

I give to the poor 

Through income tax

Easter morning.

Yet you Christ are always there. 

You are the many-faceted crystal

Of our desires and hopes, 

Behind the smoke-screen of incense, 

Concealed in mumbled European tongues 

Of worship and of praise.

In the thick dusty verbiage 

Of centuries of committees 

Of ecumenical councils. 

You yet remain revealed 

To those who seek you. 

It is I, you say. 

You remain in the sepulchre 

Of my brown body.

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!

You were not dead. 

It was just that we

Could not see clearly enough. 

We can push out the rock from the inside. 

You can come out now. 

You see we want to share you

With our masters, because 

You really are unique.

The great muddy river Niger, 

Pick  up the rising equatorial sun, 

Changing itself by slow degrees 

Into thick flowing molten gold.