Earth & ash

Have you ever seen blood so red?
Earthy as Idanre clay
Thick as a cloud draped sunset,
And the coils of your hair


This is truth
The breath of Oludumare
Perfection balanced on the edges of a spinning top
Melodious disaster
familiar song in the distance
Words steeped with meaning lost
Made thinner with the passing of each ancestor
How do you translate a song that has been forgotten
just as it is about to begin?


This is the longing place
Pacing
Aching
The empty space that only god can fill
Radiates
And shimmers
Strums every molecule of your being
Here, the charcoal hand of Obatala kneads you
Molds you into bowl
Kiln
Fire
Have you ever seen lightning blister stone into glass?
Oshun stretches the strands of your DNA
Threading you along fingers of coral,
amber,
Sargasso,
oak
Knitting grains of sand into nets
that hold starlight
And pulse like jellyfish through the infinite


Have you ever seen eyes like these?
Bright as honey
Round as the fullest moon
Sweet as chestnuts
Sparkling like newly whispered promises
And answered prayers

​
​Sometimes in my darkest moments
When my thoughts are all midnights of worry
And siren songs
I return here to you
becoming mantra of sky and brackish water
You are the deepest of my days
And my longest nights