Nyame Dua

- Poetry -

Saheed Sunday, Nigeria

to learn about a people is to understand their history.

the viscous linen that layers them into a thread

of substance. I am a caged bird unsure of how wings

flap themselves to take flight. unsure of what makes me

a bird. the flight or the physiology? on the day I became,

nobody talked about how the present only begins from

when you were born. anything before that is someone

else’s history. just that sometimes, you are no longer the kid

christened after a sandy grouper, or an aegyptosaurus.

nor are you the teen whose dream is to become a pilot.

you become something less than a headword.

nothing more than an adjective describing an ancestor

that transcends the newness of your becoming.

in my own case, my father gave me two things at birth:

a name and an order. carry the strength and grace

of Agbongboakala, but only enough of his misfortune.

who am I to disobey my first order? I planted

all my will into a tree, hoping it would blossom.

but in my mother tongue, every living thing is liable

to go to rest. I never knew a tree is a living thing.

it went to rest, and all my will went to rest with it.

Saheed Sunday, NGP V, is a Nigerian poet, a Star Prize awardee, a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best of the Net Prize nominee, a Best Small Fictions Prize nominee, and an HCAF member.