QUEEN
You are a garden of fruited dreams,
from you love spreads in endless streams.
Your wings have always borne me high,
and I strive, because of you, to earn
garlands of honour among my peers.
When time came for me to find my own way
through the maze of life. You armed me
with prayer. I travelled. I travelled alone
but through the song of my train
your laughter filtered through, it delighted me.
I am a man now, but still your little boy.
Your calyxes will always be my quilt.
Free to run my life, yet my soul runs back
to you, desperate for a jab of selfless counsel
and love flowing as from an illimitable stream.
Do you remember that when I was younger,
I misunderstood counsel as trespass?
I was too young to fathom the depths
of your love or the reason for all your
anxieties over how I lived my life.
You are the greatest miracle of all,
rejoicing or hurting at my winning or losing.
How can I repay except to be your crowning?
© Nnorom Azuonye
A version of "Queen" was first published in Letter to God & Other Poems (Nsibidi Africana Publishers, 2003)
IGIRIGI UTUTU
(to Ezinne Hannah Azuonye)
I laughed an error out of my life today.
Never knew I had power of will that strong.
Then I remembered the spirit of your love,
mother, O golden martinet glitter on, and on,
mould my middle years with the same
soothing fires that forged my youth.
© Nnorom Azuonye
"Igirigi Ututu" was first published in the November 2006 issue of Sketchbook
