Chinua Achebe

Hurrah! to them who do nothing see nothing feel nothing whose hearts are fitted with prudence like a diaphragm across womb’s beckoning doorway to bar the scandal of seminal rage. I’m told the owl too wears wisdom in a ring of defense round each vulnerable eye securing it fast against the darts of sight. Long ago in the Middle East Pontius Pilate openly washed involvement off his white hands and became famous. (Of all the Roman officials before him and after who else is talked about every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed?) And talking of apostles that other fellow Judas wasn’t such a fool either; though much maligned by succeeding generations the fact remains he alone in that motley crowd had sense enough to tell a doomed movement when he saw one and get out quick, a nice little packet bulging his coat pocket into the bargain—sensible fellow. September 1970

(for Niyi Osundare) Something in altitude kindles power-thirst Mere horse-height suffices the emir Bestowing from rich folds of prodigious turban Upon crawling peasants in the dust Rare imperceptible nods enwrapped In princely boredom. I too have known A parching of that primordial palate, A quickening to manifest life Of a long recessive appetite. Though strapped and manacled That day I commanded from the pinnacle Of a three-tiered world a bridge befitting The proud deranged deity I had become. A magic rug of rushing clouds Billowed and rubbed its white softness Like practiced houri fingers on my sole And through filters of its gauzy fabric Revealed wonders of a metropolis Magic-struck to fairyland proportions. By different adjustments of vision I caused the clouds to float Over a stilled landscape, over towers And masts and smoke-plumed chimneys; Or turned the very earth, unleashed From itself, a roaming fugitive Beneath a constant sky. Then came A sudden brightness over the world, A rare winter’s smile it was, and printed On my cloud carpet a black cross Set in an orb of rainbows. To which Splendid nativity came–who else would come But gray unsporting Reason, faithless Pedant offering a bald refractory annunciation? But oh what beauty! What speed! A chariot of night in panic flight From Our Royal Proclamation of the rites Of day! And riding out Our procession Of fantasy We slaked an ancient Vestigial greed shriveled by ages of dormancy Till the eyes exhausted by glorious pageantries Returned to rest on that puny Legend of the life jacket stowed away Of all places under my seat. Now I think I know why gods Are so partial to heights—to mountain Tops and spires, to proud iroko trees And thorn-guarded holy bombax, Why petty household divinities Will sooner perch on a rude board Strung precariously from brittle rafters Of a thatched roof than sit squarely On safe earth.

I broke at last the terror-fringed fascination that bound my ancient gaze to those crowding faces of plunder and seized my remnant life in a miracle of decision between white- collar hands and shook it like a cheap watch in my ear and threw it down beside me on the earth floor and rose to my feet. I made of their shoulders and heads bobbing up and down a new ladder and leaned it on their sweating flanks and ascended till midair my hands so new to harshness could grapple the roughness of a prickly day and quench the source that fed turbulence to their feet. I made a dramatic descent that day landing backways into crouching shadows into potsherds of broken trance. I flung open long-disused windows and doors and saw my hut new-sept by rainbow brooms of sunlight become my home again on whose trysting floor waited my proud vibrant life.