Stars in Our Farm
My grandmother planted stars on her farm;
each day as the war raged on every side;
she hid under the moon-lit cocoa plantation
and prayed that her stars survived the bombs,
the artillery, the Ogbunigwe and the ambushes,
Never minding the antelopes and snakes
They swoop in at random to gnaw at fruits;
She knew how to tame the wild;
and the heavy boots that marched,
their echoes tugging down the sky
and with it, the meatless stars.
She knew some of the stars were waiting
to break free from the walls of the sky
and falling on her as though she failed.
But my grandmother prayed harder,
rushed to the streams, raised a river,
and swamped her farm with the flood.
The stars survived the thirst and hunger.
My grandmother's stars germinated fruits
whose branches and leaves touched the moon.
Another’s Body
There was a time when my father told me,
that another man’s body was a piece of wood,
but the one I saw that day was mine,
lifeless, ashy, dotted with grey spots,
lying across the road like an abandoned soldier.
How I could see my happiness
sprawled on a canvas of sand and grass,
or my sadness splattered on my face
like a slew of pebbles in the wind,
filled me with pain and disgust.
How I watched men and women pass by,
throwing cursory glances at my naked body,
some wincing, whistling, whispering,
others halting their movements for a second
before continuing on their journey,
their fingers stuck within their noses.
I must have past decomposition on the way
the martyrdom of the good and the holy.
How goodness dies in the thought of evil
when we lack the boldness to confront fear,
realising that no good deeds go unpunished.
I asked myself what every man asks,
was I so mean and cruel to another’s body
lying in a ditch without a soul to rescue?
There was indeed a time when my father told me
that another man’s corpse was a piece of wood
lying across a shoulder on the way to a grave,
lying across our eyes, obstructing our view.
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Unleash Lit, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Impostor Journal.
