Come Thunder by Christopher Okigbo

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Now that the triumphant march has entered the last street corners,

Remember, O dancers, the thunder among the clouds…

Now that the laughter, broken in two, hangs tremulous between

the teeth,

Remember, O dancers, the lightning beyond the earth…

The smell of blood already floats in the lavender-mist of the

afternoon.

The death sentence lies in ambush along the corridors of power;

And a great fearful thing already tugs at the cables of the open air,

A nebula immense and immeasurable, a night of deep waters –

An iron dream unnamed and unprintable, a path of stone.

The drowsy heads of the pods in barren farmlands witness it,

The homesteads abandoned in this century’s brush fire witness it:

The myriad eyes of deserted corn cobs in burning barns witness it:

Magic birds with the miracle of lightning flash on their feathers…

The arrows of God tremble at the gates of light,

The drums of curfew pander to a dance of death;

And the secret thing in its heaving

Threatens with iron mask

The last lighted torch of the century…