Come then, to Stay, Pius!
Olu Obafemi
All assurances
In all the stories and narrations
That good must trounce evll
Have come to nought
What happened to Agbe
And all his affirmations that
Journeys end in certain return?
Yet, the iron and metal version of your diverse selves
Has played a mortal trick on us all;
You have refused to carry Pius back home;
His journey’s end is a cloud of ungatherabe ashes.
The last time
That death brought harassment
To Pius’ restless spirit
Along Oyo-Ibadan hideous death-trap
Bequeathed to us by shameless ruiners
Blockheads and dream wreckers;
The Agbe bird was on affirmative target,
Saying Ewo!
Akii r’Ajo Ka ma dele-
The trip of the hand to the mouth
Brings a certain return,
As Agbe promised in the songs.
We knew that Pius is here to stay
Now,
Through the smoothest means known to man,
In the skies, said to hold immeasurable expanse
For all birds to fly without a clash
Came the fateful crash
Leaving us no substance to our memories;
Memories of a genial genius
Who touched many and every thing
And all he touched was a rust-less alchemy of gold;
Mindless death left us nothing to hold on to in fond remembrance;
Not even ashes in a bottle for the world to curdle!
They console us with conundrums and parables;
That valued trees never last in the forest;
They say Iroko, Awo, disappear fast
Into the greedy pockets of lumber merchants;
Merchants of brutal death;
Only Gedu, Ewuro, and valueless epithets
Litter our world with their seeming dead-less selves
Leaving bitter tastes and horrible pain
In our trouble lives:
Recall them in their numerous duplicates and triplicates;
They run and ruin Africa for decades,
Fouling our land with their putrescence
And we wake up to endless years of suffocation from their putrefaction.
And,
Remark our very purest and bests,
Departing before we could sing lullabies to their bounteous harvests.
Pius, genial genius
Priceless bumpkin from our harried backyard and homestead,
Yanked from us, without remains to balm our tearful soul.
Ha, Pius, Haba;
Did you, with your uncanny clairvoyant precocity,
See it coming?
That it would be a brief candle sojourn
A whistle-stop in the global space?
Is that why you hurried through life
At that deafening speed,
Rampaging through the universe
With a thousand implacable Aces
Dazing and dazzling the world with thunderous roars and applauses:
Gathering Firsts from so early in the morning
Hitting the surprised skies before your sun has hardly risen to its full manhood?
And then no more,
Just before the ovations began to thunder?
Now, there are no mortuaries to visit;
No graves to lay a million wreaths
No symbols to dress garlands, homilies, epics, odes
Of your heroic and audacious exploits?
It must be then,
That you are here to stay
And outpourings of unprecedented cognomens
Await your certain come-back.
That mut be why,
At the Ijowa gate of Isanlu,
Our mothers commune
Singing with a defiant united voice:
Omo tigha kein o
Omo tigha kein—Be koin,
Leo gb’Omo tigha l’Owo gha
(Our precious, this Pius
Our god-son this jewel
Not even death can claim him from our clutch.
Come back, quickly then
Into the world’s waiting arms
So that we may not say
Adieu.
EMERE
(a chant for Pius Adesanmi)
By RASAKI OJO BAKARE
If you had come in the earlier seasons,
You would have been named Kukoyi.
In those seasons when the eyes
Resided in the knees, Igbekoyi,
You would have been called.
Shining, Starry, Sleeky and Smart, you would
Have been decoded at birth!
Pious, Pretty, Perfect, and Pleasant, the last flight
Would have been foretold!
All virtues in large dozes, the way
An Emere comes.
All things touched turn to gold, the way
An Emere lives,
Sudden flights of no return
Wrenching the hearts of them he touched
Dashing the hopes of those to touch,
The way an Emere leaves
He comes. He shines. Hope raised.
Then he leaves when the peak is on
When the ovation is ear-deafening
When your grief the sky caresses
I know an Emere when my eyes behold one.
In those seasons of Jalumi war
During the moons of Foworemi famine
When mothers abandoned their children
But offered to shelter Puppies,
The pregnable tale would have been rife
That Lois walked alone at the
Twilight of the morning dew…
Trudging down the forest path…
Taking temporary rests under
The Baobab trees…
And there comes the Emere…
Displacing the child within her bowel.
But… offer a whisper into the hole between my lobes
… are you Emere?
The Perfect, Pious Pius, your ways quite
Unusual…
Confess to a brother in grief,
… are you a child of the coven?
Even before your NO!
My heart had witnessed you are not
Only that your ways are too mysterious
All that matter now, your return…
Yes, You must return!
Our land-raided, raped and ruined
Your exit, a depletion in the
Coven of Patriots,
Return, You must!
The job is daunting and labourers are few
Even when Emere go they usually return
So, come back we Plead!
Either from the rusty roofs of Isanlu,
Or the rocky hills of Adavi
To the lowly plains of Ibaji
Or even the rolling hills of Ekiti
Just find a space and drop!
The place and where are not important
The time of need is now and immediate
For the war you led is much uncompleted
As our land wallows in mendacious existence
So, you must return!
Ogbo leaf says you must listen to me
Ekutele’s ears say you must hear my words
The hero never hears his panegyric without
Striking his sword
Pele o, Adebola, Omo Adesanmi
Isanlu Gaala Omo Adegbe derin,
Omo aniyan Omo alobe
Alomi nle ojo ntiro, amujana
Ansolojo, Akoko Hojupono Tori Onkonile,
Isheha Eha Jarope
Friend of Nigeria
Son of Africa
Lover of humanity
Your type, the Emere,
They do return!