From the Sierra Leone Writer’s Forum ( SLWF)
Soundless tears
Not a word out of you
Lest you tell us how his shrunk
eyes behind our camera lenses
Have blinked their last
Wordless tears
Neither a whimper nor a cough
Out of you; lest your bells knell
A farewell to our Salonean star
of promise. Not a word! Sssssh!
Muted tears
Still! Steely silent. Sentient still
Lest you recall our Director’s last
Words to me, a day after my birthday:
‘sorry I’m late, sir’
No. it can’t be his hands-up;
his wave of a white kerchief
The laying down of his last breath
His last sigh, pulse and sight....
Hushed tears
Not a whine. Not a cracked croak
Not even an audible heave or sigh
to toll the passing of a face
Still stained in youthful gold.
Hold your wail; O tears, lest you
call the gaping, insatiable jaws
Of earth; lest you call the holy
Intonement of ‘ash to ash’
Lest you hymn the dirge of ‘dust to dust’
Peaceful tears
Calm. Compose. Comport yourself
We’ll not have you spit a darkness
That holds into its tranquil fold
Hairs this inky black; skin this
Smooth and free of wrinkles
Knees this springy and eyes
This full of the fresh dew of dawn.
Solemn tears
If you must flow; stream
into that river that awaits all
Steady your current under
This new arrival; our director
Now in this boat bobbing upon
Your calm waves to paradise
O Lap gently your wave of farewell
To the shores that must usher him
To his land of peace
Return your tides of peace back
to our faces while he rests
in perpetual peace.
By
Njanguma Momodu 2021
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