One

ONE
To Deo vivante: Who made the Word a gift

For Homo mortalis: Who craves the Word to live

I
In garment wrought of fiery stuff,

And undercoat of stellar sorts

They stood unfazed in crumbling sparks

Of Lie aligned with Morning Stars1.


II
With words a thousand beings to start,

And thoughts a thousand more in store:

They roam the face of deepest sphere

Of mounds of stars of wondrous sorts.


0III
When such as keenly seen is scant,

You glean the ken and see it's speck –

They show the world in all's a spate

That being on stage as scenes is singed.


IV
With minions bound in place to skip,

And millions more in store for spring –

They break the spell of numbing siege

Of winter – life's essence to shield.


V
In ceaseless eons – they stay the same;

And breathless span – unknown the scale,

They mount Eternity, a seam

Of being and will, a breathless scope.


VI
In perfect ease – unroll the scroll;

With wanton peace – at once to speak:

They made the dots as scented sheets

Of sounds and sights: a thumping score.


VII
With vaunted span as wide as sight,

And tenderest arms as cool as steel –

They bear in care the ponderous sheikh

And stag and sheaf and wondering sheep.


VIII
With all for all – nay naught for self;

And more for all: the scars, the stripes –

They gave and gave – with naught to spare

Of thought as work – as tells the Shroud.


IX
With mills that grind from whole and shards,

To mill as fine as hail sans scars:

They mount in place a scheme as so

To sound for depths: their eons to sow.


X
With sunken heart beheld the scene,

As misty eyes appraised their strips:

They sighed in thought at what it seemed –

And saw to it: a token streak.


XI
Cavernous depths of bounded strength,

Sinews intangible to sense –

They tread the sea in tandem strides

And stamp on myriad forms their seal.


XII
With zeal unbounded, boundless source!

And will undaunted: steeped in salve –

They wright the Forces: "Mould Me salt!

For seas and systems – sumptuous sums!"



© 2003 by Adeleke Adeyemi

___________________________
1. The Allusion is to "the father of lies" – once one of very many "sons of God," or "morning stars" in Judeo-Christian thought. (See St. John 8:44; Job 1:6; 38:7&Ezekiel 28:13.)

The identity belongs to Loki: the "god of mischief and destruction" in Norse mythology.

Patented as Esu in Yoruba folklore, it is told there how upon encountering two close friends walking on jollily deems it fit to destroy the amity between them – by simple recourse to mischief, an aspect of his being; his stock-in-trade for very many intents and purposes.

He surreptitiously intrudes into their line of vision, wearing a twin-lobed multi-colored cap. One friend sees it all as red; the other friend sees it as only black!

A quarrel ensues between the two, each disgusted with the other for pettiness in not conceding the point.

They soon come to blows – and end up parting ways.

Esu – or, Loki – stalks away with a smirk, satisfied his ruse has, once again, ruled supreme to carry the day.

This is his Parody of the NT Emmaus Walk reality ( St. Luke 24:13-32) – the Parody being a dimension of his persona.

His personhood is quite distinct, however, from the principle of evil – "the will to live in reverse". But he has, willy-nilly, assumed it for his personality. Hence, he is a cosmological counterfeit in reality.

He is a two-sided coin– Mischief and Destruction – in his present existence, which will end when he is spent, a function of Time only.

N.B:This poem was composed by one of the most gifted poets in Africa, my friend Adeleke Olufemi Adeyemi who has endured so much with me.And we are still the best of friends.