FEATURE ARTICLE

Augustine C. OhanweWednesday, September 3, 2014
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PEBBLE-LADEN WIND (POEM)

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tanding akimbo
in the broad floral biosphere,
I watch a strong gale wind
as it blows,
crossing the hanging bridge;
its waves ruffling the surface of the river,
bending the trees,
and caressing the polity with pebbles.

It batters posters,
makes doors slam,
vehicles are forced to sway, swerve and capsize.
It bruises,
shreds and obliterates everything
along its charted path.

I watch wine taper’s rope girdle shake
as he clings tenaciously
like a drowning man;
his face looks daze,
as if time has stood still,
even though the oscillating pendulum
of the wall clock ticks.

And the wind rejoices in the destruction.
Yet the frightful vicissitude is only a precursor,
to the calamity that is in store,
and we can hear the pounding drum
of the coming event
behaving in the manner of Attila the Hun,
whose brutal activities earned him
the sobriquet, ‘The Scourge of God’.

The cold chill of the lurking danger
has enveloped the nation
and leaves us stunned and breathless;
our souls overwhelm with fear
of the unknown.

Are we handicapped
to tame the crushing waves
that sweep across the terrain,
leaving behind
thousands of widows and widowers,
and waves of sorrows and despairs?

I have seen ugly events
but the coming one makes me tremble.
And our interior harmony
are drawn to death by fatal gravitation
clothed with colours of shocking reality
waiting to introduce us
to the frightful silence of the tomb,
unless the monster wind maneuvers
into a trap
dwarfing the plans of the metrologists
who used it as a hugaboo

Thought waves,
that beloved brainchild of mine,
commute from earth to the abode of the gods
to query why the valley of tears?
Why in the foothill lurks dire and peril?
And why this world of ours
and its affairs
cannot allow us rest on our oars?

August 2, 2014.

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