Animistic Spells by Wole Soyinka

Also Read

I

First you must

Walk among the faceless 

Their feet are shod in earth 

And dung

Caryatids in anterooms of night's inbirth

Shards strewn

On secret passages of night

Their creviced skin is dew

Inlaid, star-wells 

For night of drought, for dearth of light

Hold

As they, bread as breath

Is held and spent, discarding

Weights of time

In clutching and possessing-yokes of death.

The quest

Is all, endless

Then home-coming

Respite

Before the gathering of the outward crest

II

Eyes

That grow as stamens need

A yeast of pollen. Shun

Visions

Of the unleavened, look sooner on the sun

III

Death

Embraces you and I

A twilight cone is

Meeting-place

The silent junction of the grey abyss

IV

The past

Dissolves in lacquered notes

Lips on woodwind, ears of grain

Swaying to echoes in a veil of rust

V

Incense

Of pines when a page 

Is turned, woodsmoke

Rings

Across a thousand years to a bygone sage

VI

Fragments

We cannot hold, linger 

Parings of intuition

Footsteps

Passing and re-passing the door of recognition

VII

Line

Of the withered bough Hill and broken valleys

Dearth

On thirsty palm to furrows of the earth

VIII

Blood

When it is done-dearth 

Of lines from palm to love

Light, 

Springs, to patient wrinkles on the earth

IX

Links

Of dust, whitened rib 

Of ghosts to flute

Home-coming 

Moth-fingers hover on the new-laid crib.

X

Old moons

Set your crescent eyes 

On bridges of my hands

Comb out

Manes of sea-wind on my tide-swept sands

XI

Seed

A bowl of dark unblemish 

A chancel closed in forest

Silences

Repletion for earth's own regenerate need

A wind's

Dark mantle brushes past

A quiet prelude to the stir

Of germ

A cycle's ether sieve for pollen hair

Fall seeds

Then, to mineral hands 

Flush out in your green

And gentle blades

Awaken minds and grow to cosmic shades

XII

Buried lakes

My feet satanic cleft 

Spring-divining feet have mined

Buried lakes

Calms in opal caverns of the mind

Incense-bost

Amber flare, a broken 

Bolt awash in indigo

Sky and voice 

Peace of light before the deaths token

Sough of wings

Moonsward on night, guides 

To skyscapes of the mind

Unfettered

Now begins the flight on memory tides

XIII

Offerings

That cling to us teach

To give is to suffer To share

A bitter foretaste of the death we bear

Altar-vessel

Of one skull shall bear

Offerings for the ascent

Multitudes

Shall dance on flesh remains of a cosmic dare

XIV

Three millet

Stalks. A tasselled crown

On a broken glass horizon

Weeds clogged

Their feet, winds came and blew them down

New ears arose

Lean lances through

A stubbed and mangled mound-

And this I saw-

Their grains were ripened closer to the ground.