GONE

When the dawn was closing the night

My sleep died, just like a shadow

That runs when it sees the light.

I got up from bed and gave a bow

To God who had snatched me from

Dreams that lock souls in death’s room.

Amidst the ever whistling breeze,

And the callings of the chorus frogs

 Who at dusk make silence seize

And mess around in streams and shores,

I stepped outside and sat in the corridor,

Crossed my legs and faced the sky,

There I saw the nightfall kings in close rapport.

I saw how the moon was always coy;

Hiding in the cloth of the cloud each time it moved.

‘Oh poor soul, loneliness must be what those eyes can see’

For it had neither a lover, folk nor fold.

The stars were not shy at all; they stared from their settee.

All of a sudden, the sky was limpid

Not even those voluminous stars I saw

Remained. Even the gentle moon had fled.

Their time had sailed through the dusk and now ashore.

The callings of the chorus frogs had stopped to boot,

The night gradually passed on.

The light of heaven was instantly acute.

The ways of the dusk was gone.

They are gone,

Those men of great intellect and foolishness,

They are done;

Just like how the moon and the stars lost their prowess.

They are gone.

Back to where they came from, back to the dust,

Back to dawn.

That man I saw yesterday is gone to the coast

He has journeyed through the earth and has come to the end.

The one I saw last night was done, he’s done with life

‘But how do they live and feed, what do they do in that place beyond.

Do they eat or starve, sleep or roam that land in strife?’

“No they don’t, each man to his own.

Those who the devil had swayed while on earth

Are thrown into the pit where they will groan,

But those who knew the Lord in perfect truth,

And followed his ways will enter that place he had prepared”

Do not be fooled by false thoughts, both the many and the few

Both the rich and the poor will die like the moon and the stars did.

When this is done and life is gone, your deed shall be your crew.

                                                                   Mide Benedict: a true experience