ODE OF A TURBULENT MIND

Morning broke and Sun shone her brilliant and captivating smile upon us...
The birds painted pictures in the skies, with their feather-light wings and the morning mosquitoes laid their eggs in the waters of the village water-pots of clay.
The petal-daughters of Nature's womb blushed at the caress of the dew-kiss and the vultures sword-slashed carcasses-of-past-glory.

The mothers of the jungles pawed along, clawing at the backs and throats of their prey, as they sought for food for their young...


And we remained ignorant of Death's brutal plan to claw at your back, your throat; YOU were HIS  prey and we were oblivious to your impending role-play as another victim in the horror-ible PLOT of the drama of Life and Death...

So Sun shone, birds air-painted, mosquitoes laid, petals bloomed and blushed, vultures sword-slashed, jungle mothers clawed:

And then we awoke, wide-eyed and drowsy-looking like innocent, naive babies with the frothy spittle of blanketing sleep, at the corners of our heavy, sticky mouths...

And you were gasping for the precious, gracious, merciful breath-of-life.
And we did not know; no; we did not know...

Because we know what-was, what-is, but not what-will-be:
And we did not know that what-would-be would be a world with raw, festering, calcium-starved sores that will not clot; so blood oozes, gushes and flows with the inextinguishable fire of pain that consumes our insides;
An anger so passionate and unhealthy... And yet somehow we can make peace, because we know that you departed with the stamp of peace upon YOUR heart...

For turbulent as your life had been, somehow you swam in a perfect cadence, at one with the ebb and flow of a filthy-cleansing ocean.

The world was your home;
- AFRICA sculpted the foundation of your burdened heritage;
- The United States of America birthed you;
- Egypt was a love cocoon who gazed upon your flesh-consuming kind of love - then Egypt watched you, a wounded, bruised butterfly, your wings saturated with the putrid stench of a love gone rancid;
- Ghana stood firm, as the rugged, zealous and tortured fires of the black race consumed you
- You were a Wordsmith; metals composed of word-molecules worshipped you and yielded to the torture of your hands. And from these metals you crafted monuments of universal truths and your literary prowess came alive with the potency of a well-endowed man-sac.
- You wore the prides, the joys, the sorrows and the shames of vast geographical spaces and of people, whom you never knew, but who dreamt of you, people who want to be like you, people who cherish you; people who mourn you, now...

Now... Now... The flesh of your body is at the mercy of flesh-devouring pests.
But thoughts of you are engraved upon the matter of our brains.
Your legacy will live on. Your story will be told, you Phenomenal Woman.
And even in death, YOU still rise to places that, in life, many can only dream of...

And even after Sun shines no more, when birds air-paint only in historical Science books, when mosquitoes lay eggs only in memory and theory, when petals droop with icy countenance, when vultures are but fossils, as jungle mothers limp in deathly shadows:

Your IMMORTALITY shall prevail on Earth, in galaxies, in unknown realms, in the face of TURBULENCE and in another life!


APIORKOR SEYIRAM ASHONG