Same Old Music from Rain’s Mouth
Oko Owi Ocho
The Poem
i.
same old music from rain’s mouth
falls through my childhood again
only the drums from a thatch house
is more solemn than violent band of the zinc roof
I gather memories from head of a boy
whose mother is drenched in consonants of cold
I, the child, savours vowels of
pattering on cassava leaf that shields my head
soft echoes of my ancestors’s footstep bounce into my measly ears
& the glory of their energy, using naked foot to clear pathways stood inside my retina
ii.
today, the rain sang stones and exile.
the roof drums beats of absence
Abuja is a city with broken songnotes that crave solitude steep in silence:
“water falling from gods’ bath” as my mother named the rain
& the thatch sounding humble beats she said is “the reflection of alekwu
falling from gods’ body to sing with children”
Adoka shuns silence. when the rain becomes utterance of sounds
the village is a moth rejecting flames
it dances around it, saying “the flame is god’s eyes
that turned flowers. I won’t defy this beauty by dying”
this is how it rains differently inside city souls
with village songs inside their memory’s throat.
The Poet
Oko Owi Ocho is an award-winning poet, performance artist, and scholar. He was longlisted for the Nigerian Student Poetry Prize (2017), earned an NSPP Award of Excellence (2018) for his poem, ‘Zeyani’ and was the second prize winner of the Korea Nigeria Poetry Prize (2018). He is currently researching fourth-generation Nigerian poets. He is the founder and team lead of Afrika-Writes, the Creative Director for Benue Poetry Troupe and Programmes Manager, SEVHAGE.
– Culled from All Poets Network International (APNETi)
