De Nigeriaanse dichter en schrijver Chinua Achebe werd geboren op 16 november 1930 in Ogidi. Zie ook alle tags voor Chinua Achebe op dit blog.
Refugee Mother And Child
No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother’s tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.
The air was heavy with odours
of diarrhoea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies. Most
mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull and then –
singing in her eyes – began carefully
to part it… In another life this
would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.
Love Cycle
At dawn slowly
the sun withdraws his
long misty arms of
embrace. Happy lovers
whose exertions leave
no aftertaste nor slush
of love’s combustion; Earth
perfumed in dewdrop
fragrance wakes
to whispers of
soft-eyed light…
Later he
will wear out his temper
ploughing the vast acres
of heaven and take it
out of her in burning
darts of anger. Long
accustomed to such caprice
she waits patiently
for evening when thoughts
of another night will
restore his mellowness
and her power
over him.
Chinua Achebe (Ogidi, 16 november 1930)