Poems: Exchange (From Obemata’s Letters of Returning Light)

Exchange (From Obemata’s Letters of Returning Light)

lumo kai

to keep the morning weightless,
and the evening from closing its eyes,
you must give back the flame,
not the sun’s,
not the lamp’s,
not the moon’s,
but the one trembling in your chest.

seer, poet, man,
the sun keeps its distance
so your shadow never forgets
how to walk with you.
the moon floats over water,
a memory bending towards itself.
and the lamp?
it is your step,
seeking the music
of a forgotten path.

k’obong nyameko

i have searched the air for what you mean,
the same air that carries your breath
back to the mouth of silence.
if the flame returns,
it will not find the chest as it was
but as it has become:
a hollow filled with listening.

you speak of paths,
but i walk within the light that forgets me.
the moon, your faithful witness,
trembles on my open palms.
perhaps what we lose
was never meant to be found,
only to teach us
how to walk unafraid of shadows.

obemata to lumo kai and k’obong nyameko
(a remembrance of the origin)

heteronyms of my being,
two halves of my divided breath,
you have spoken as light speaks,
one searching for its origin,
the other for what the origin forgets.

i have heard you both.
and i say, there is no loss.
the things that leave do not vanish.
they become the wind for the reed,
sea for the moon,
water for the mouth of the earth.
the flame you seek to return
was never yours to keep;
it was lent to you
so that forgetting could learn its opposite.

light does not mourn its breaking.
it travels to remember its source.
each ray is a syllable,
each glimmer a prayer of return.
and when it enters
the vastness of the sky,
it does not fade;
it opens.

i write so the origin that forgets
may remember,
so your shadows, faithful walkers,
may know the difference
between departure and becoming.
listen:
the air you breathe in longing
is only the shape
of home.

About the poet:
Obemata, Lumo Kai and K’obong Nyameko
are the heteronyms of the Nigerian poet and lawyer, Abdul Mahmud.