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My Mind is Light with Grief
(For Nnorom Azuonye)
and i check the photos, recall the laughter on the digital pane of your life. there seated on that facebook wall: the life memory offers us instead of your flesh. my tears trace you into the dark alleys of absence, into emptiness. no, into the fullness of your laughter that lives with us. the sentinel of your kindness stretches from london to limpopo.
so, i extract the light of your photos and make poems to recover you from that cold embrace of the night. i write your poem, and fill your persona with lyrics of light. i deny that absence the pleat of joy. i stop the drift into silence, and yank dark figures off the daring still walls. i stop silence from taking you into its permanent cell, by the miracle of metaphors. i refuse to mention that proud ageless ogre, to drag you into dark conversations with it. would it be pleased then to know that my heart is light with grief? would it be pleased then to have its heavy name replaced by the benign metaphor that leaves its name without power? hush, for this sentinel has overcome absence, drawn to himself the flowers of peace. his light shines forth as those early buds after rains.
About the Author
Ndubuisi Martins is a member of the Advisory Board of The Protagonist, a journal of literary and cultural criticism at the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, Charles University, Prague, where he is currently a PhD candidate.
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