(a poem invoking a sense of absence in a season of love)
By James Eze
i’m taking myself out on a date tonight
i’ll lay in a lush green grass
& count the stars in solitude
i’ll weep at the ecstasy of mating clouds
under the cover of the full moon
it reminds me of our silhouette
you were the lyric
to my song before the songbird
grew a boil in the mouth
so tonight, i’ll remember our promenades
when hand in hand, we walked into yesterday
your smile slicing through blankets of memories
when laughter waited at dawn with baited breath
to break free in joyous decibels
entwining our hearts to the secrets of the night
& in the silence of my room
i’d sniff the sheets for the smell of you
longing for vignettes of a wondrous past
now in the epiphany of the menacing twilight
in the incandescence of exultant fireflies
i wrap my lips around your name in song
i’m amazed at my own power
i’m the silence before an earthquake
you are the spark that ignites the hour
but tonight baby, i’m lonely as the moon
surrounded by the vastness of your absence
i count the heartbeat of time in nostalgia
take my hand, beloved, & walk me home
through footpaths worn by lust
through thickets of verdant memories
take me to the house across the hills
where mantis fold their hands up in prayer
for love does not live here anymore
• Eze is the winner, 2020 Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Poetry Prize and Chief Press Secretary to Governor Obiano of Anambra state.