(In Memoriam Anayo Ogujawa)
Joshua says to be still
and know that he is god
only there's no knowing
as always with him
what precisely he so means
how exactly a seven-year-long heaving heart
convulsed by so much tears torrential
pouring down eyes swollen
from whole immersion baptismal
in the supposedly sobering sorrow's sea
reemerging again giddily drunk
may be securely still
For when the patrol car convoy
tearing down the Nigerian road
a peerless roaring legal terror
driving all the other less legitimate mobiles
whether mechanical or manual
from its oh yes god-given bearing
lost its own streamlined stillness
from so much, why, god-speed of course
the fleeting faltering enough to knock down
a huge metal signpost standing still, see
to the right-flank of the reprobate road
and the fatal fall in turn knocked Anayo down
who crashed on the tarred thoroughfare his brain
with all that profusion of god's mercy -
decidedly disproportionate for a single head -
reposed within it
he was himself standing still, see?
