ODE TO IBESIKPO (A poem by Poet Razon-Anny Justin)

           ODE TO IBESIKPO

(By Poet Razon-Anny Justin)

Lo! I shall not count steps

If I do, may my left foot tread first

For how would we've known our fathers

If not from our mothers?

So, I lie calm and naked

At the tomb of my umblicus

And hail thee!

Ibesikpo! Nsim ayara- Ennang!

Goddesses of my left root

Oku! of priests and priestesses

Udoe! of pure oozing fountains

Afagha! where men live with spirits

And spirits take marriages, of men

Like the proverbial Bull's switch

Numerous flies lie dead when it turns

I can't hear their buzzings anymore

For it has been swallowed by the loud bellows

From the Bull which is my mothers'.

Ibesikpo! Nsim ayara- Ennang

People who attend ceremonies with gourds

Slung behind their strong backs

And mock others totting wood- stools

What fooly to care about seats

When wise men can stand a-drink

Wine couldn't inebriate my mother's fathers

Pot after pot; around, they dutifully gathered

My mother's- fathers, I greet

The Bull that trot to a ceremony

Only to be pushed home in a carriage

When an Ibesikpo man staggers

He laughs loudly like the warrior he is

Chants his name to the seventh generation

To the kins and thick palm groves

"Every hamlet has its song- bird

And every family, it's clown

Thick, rich slurry of the dry palms

I shall not be made clown for thee

While I was only testing the ground

Much rains these days, who knows

Maybe the loam has become quick

I'm not a man to be unceremonially buried

In a sinking drift of quicksand

It's not the drink, don't think so

No amount of booze can ever soak

This dryness in our caged souls?

Or wet the parch on our tongues?

Don't ask why I hang gourds

Or why these hordes gather around me

I was given to merriment- of wines

Unruly enchantment- of pretty maidens

I, wily and unrepentant Essien-Emana

God-child who delights in journeys

Dwelling not longer, hither or yonder

For great pilgrims alone can tell

Of the allure of sweet adventures

Till I heard mother bragging of wines

Of men as long as palm trees

And I trailed her along the path home

O! My mother's people

People of wines and pretty maidens

Most colorful carnival of masquerades

Hands that could rock fourteen drums

Music reaching the land of the dead

We heard the crazed drummings

Me and my kind- from the roads

And here ends our frequent journeys

For we landed, but couldn't go back

The goddesses of my mother's land

Now becomes the sun and the mirror

In whose light I see my silhouettes

I am not different from the shadows

Cast on the sands of my mothers

Ibesikpo! Nsim Ayara Ennang,

I salute thee!

©Poet Razon-Anny Justin,

March, 2015.