TELL DEATH (a poem for Festus Iyayi and Mandela)

…Every fear is courage unborn

But tell him, tell Death
That our silence is a kind of scream
And that every nightmare too is a dream
Tell death that the tomb
will only be the womb of our rebirth
the passage to the home of the free

…Every Nightmare is a dream

O tell him, tell Death
That against his wish, the fickle fish
Will wriggle his way through the fisherman’s net
And the blind will find at night a new vision of day –
Light: a fresh insight
Tell death that we shall join the roots
To their school underground and study tirelessly
Till found is that wellspring of wisdom, the fountain of youth

…The tomb is a womb

Yeah, tell him, tell Death
That the frost of winter will only serve as ether
To pause our latest breath, till the surgery of change is over
And to mercury the morgues freezes our father’s first drop of sweat
Tell Death that every pyrrhic-victory
Of his, is to him a cruel defeat
For our memories will forever defy gravity
And our sublime stories challenge his myth

…Silence too is a scream

Please tell him, tell Death
That he can put out the fire in our eyes
But the ember in our heart never dies
Tell death, that every fear is a courage soon to be born
And every night a ship that berths at the port of morn
We are not afraid to set sail for to succeed is first to fail

Silence is a kind of scream
Every nightmare too is a dream
The tomb is a womb
Death our rebirth
A rite of passage to the home of the free

Written by: Soonest Nathaniel Scholes

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