Cracks
This gourd, once smooth as a river stone,
held your laughter, bright and quick,
like fireflies in twilight. We’d gather
around its worn rim, firefly lanterns in hand,
and weave tales of talking animals and moonlit journeys.
Your voice, a calabash dipper, ladling wisdom,
“Remember, child, the moon mends what the sun breaks.”
Now, the moon finds cracks to weep through,
tears leaking salt onto my palms.
Each jagged line, a memory fractured,
a shard of laughter lost in the wind.
Your hands, once steady as the earth,
trembled like insects caught in a storm.
The stories, like embers, dwindled to ash.
They say grief cracks like a calabash,
but the echoes, Mama, where do they go?
Do they sing in the rustling leaves,
or gurgle in the hidden streams?
I hold your cracked world in my hands,
searching for your voice in the silence,
aching for the moon to mend what the sun has broken.
But the night is vast, and the stars cold.
The fireflies have gone, and the stories lie dormant.
I cradle your fractured legacy,
and mutter on lips chapped with salt,
“Remember, Mama, the moon tries, but it can’t mend everything.”
……….
A Little Echo in Dance of Shadows
Papa’s laughter used to be sunshine, spilling through guava trees,
mama’s voice, the river’s song, cool on burnt-brick days.
Now, the sun screams in twisted metal, the river choked with red.
Shadows with teeth ate their laughter, drank mama’s song dry.
My world used to be a polychrome, ripples of laughter, beads of sunlight,
now it’s a broken mirror, jagged edges reflecting screams.
Guava tastes like ash, the river sings songs of rust.
Papa’s smile, a wilted flower, mama’s eyes, empty bird cages.
The sun bleeds into night, stars turn to cold eyes, watching
My tears paint the earth red, a canvas of endless dusk.
Papa, mama, the river, the sun, all swallowed by the dark.
Guavas fall, unheard, on cracked earth.
The shadows dance, and I, a little echo, lost in their laughter.
No dawn breaks over this shattered mirror.
Only the shadows, forever, and the taste of ash on my tongue.
……………
Poetry: Nwodo Divine
Image: Microsoft Co-Pilot AI remixed