Today, in Nsukka, a songbird posed alone / behind a dark tunnel / fanning its wings / a sign to show, heaven is a home without an end. & nothing is too small for troubled oceans, not to swallow. Some days, I’d watch the kids roll out in their rainbow coats. Rucksacks, & streams of paints. Gravestones, and all lonely flying things, you're so beautiful. Time breaks us humans and butterflies all together. The faint lines — in between us and the glory of zebras. This is how I think of memorials in a truck of fire: I understood long ago that when the knife cuts a leaf, it also breathes into its life, a fledging grace of exceptionality. At Ogige Market, a stray bullet from a soldier's gun is rushing to meet an innocent raccoon sitting at the rock crevice, and the creature — busy making a living den for her newborns didn't know her mother's bonds would sooner than minutes become memories, in a room full of broken glasses. When tomorrow becomes today, even fading, itself is still a way to meet the grave afresh, but in all — joy is coming papa. I want to someday travel out of my past and become whatever it is that today holds for my future. & somehow, I also wish to grow to love the world again, but now I am only waiting, & waiting patiently for these drying rivers to take me home.
— ONYISHI CHUKWUEBUKA FREEDOM
Onyishi Chukwuebuka Freedom (he/him) is a Nigerian poet and essayist of Igbo descent. A graduate of English and Literary Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, his works have appeared various publications. He was the Publicity Secretary of The Muse and awarded PIN’s Yearly Anthology Best Poet for March 2024. He currently resides in Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria.