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Joshua Idowu Omidire | Colours of home

Colours of home

I hear the call of / darkness when I lie/ in my
bed/ listening to the worship songs/ that sin sings
to my body/ God goes green but/ I am unruffled/ am I no
longer the spitting image of His? / I look in the looking mirror/
of river of dreams/flowing up the hills/ I remould my large mouth/
shorten my lashes/ plant dimples on my cheeks/ redraw my
tribal marks/and when I am done/ I cannot tell who the heĺl
I am/ darkness keeps calling me/ to come drink the blood
of all the ones I love/ from the chilling chalice of betrayal/ I stagger
down the dark isle where the alluring pull tugs/ at the nectar of being/
she asks why I am so scared to flow away with darkness/I say I do not
want to destroy everyone and everything I love/ she says darkness is the
most natural state of the world/ I say I want to live forever/ she says live is
evil turned inside out/ I say it’s not enough reason to embrace her darkness/
she says I am rejecting who I am / and who am I? / she says I am
the perfect fusion of darkness and light/and all the colours in-between/
I say I am light only/ the son of the son of the son of the father of the
father of the father of my father/ hysterical
is the manner of her devouring laugh/she says the best of birds/ are the ones
whose wings are joy and sorrow/I say sorrow is heavier than lead/ she
breaks off the right wing/ of the bird in her hand/ and gifts it to the sky/but flight
is a fallen pin/ that a leprous hand/ will never pick/ the bird flaps her joy
before falling still/ the earth opens her palm/ where a lone canoe sails/ upon
the sea of darkness/ to destinations unknown/ the thing in the heart of a traveller/
is a compass gunning for perfect climes/ but there are no blameless lands/
only brown pastures looking green across the sea/ and when you sight/
the saner clouds/ the paddle breaks/ and on one foot, traveller, you/ will step
into the land of dreams/ where darkness lies famished on longing roads/
carry a paint bucket of green and a brush/paint your pasture/ if it
turns out brown/
the compass skips a beat/ before losing the memory of / all the dark ways
winding endlessly / through the wild wide world/what does
it matter so long you paint this land/
the colours of home

———–
Poem: Idowu Joshua Omidire
Image: Valentin Lacoste Unsplash/Hans Pixabay

Joshua Idowu Omidire
Joshua Idowu Omidire
Joshua Idowu Omidire is a vibrant poet, editor, blogger, and social media strategist. His poems have appeared in Footmarks, Our Legacy of Madness, The Sky is our Earth: An- thology of 50 young Nigerian Poets. He was the winner of Professor Eruvbetine’s Poetry Prize. He also won Professor Hope Eghagha’s Drama Prize in 2012. He has been published in Pulse, Ynaija, Praxis, Literary Horizon: An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal, etc. He reports for The Journal Nigeria. He loves reading hard books, listening to music, and scooping inspiration from the stream of mundane activities. He enjoys playing with street photography, graphic designing, and photo editing.

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