THE GRAVEYARD

Peep into these final ground of man
Mind with thoughts invigorates
What do you behold,
Desiccated Feats or bodies, you grasp
Weeping Wealth or webbed wretchedness of men your wits perch on?

Stare more into these six-feet-downs and gape
What squashes your heart like ajanaku atenipa
The youngness of the old or the littleness of the young
Wasted dreams or nothing at all (though I doubt nothing you’ll find.)

Here in this field of bones, I stand
Nothing complete you will find
Large as the overly spring
Buried with their books placed above
About great lives, and holy chattels
Words Filled with jubilees of lies
Lies and lies
Of a starvingly robust land and lives
Lies and lies
Put on the scale of those micro deeds of them.

Yes, there it is, that troubled land
That greyed grave buried in the graveyard by governing graves
Mouths mounting million movements and more,
Still, serious nothing so great to show for standing on staled sticks of seasons
Than rusted cleyed men, and buried bones of busy living dead.

There she is, that giant green tree,
Growing downward with adamancy and struggle;
Its roots above fresh soil,
Upward, the root spread to tap nutrient.
Dry and wet, times divide,
Still it bends not to these manacles in time.

Leaves below the grave they bloom.
Seeds germinate and flowers flower
But where are these sweats and fruits?
Right there in the grave they grave their graves.
Where are they?
They are now buried in a large familiar burial site.
Now they are graves buried in the graveyard of a grave

Look below this aging grave,
What do you see? (I doubt nothing you won’t find)
Now look more with this microscope of thoughts,
Find that cloth, yes that strange familiar one.
A passed white cloth but breathing,
Wrapped round dead brains, corpses but living

Can you see it?
That white cloth whose glory only shines to the grave,
Whose time is up,
Yet, repents when time is none.
In the palace of bones, graves, and dust
It’s christened Orunmila;
Brightly, monsterfully
Its whiteness glow.
Shinning in the graveyard, lightning the troubleless path of the dead.
Telling the bones how to survive in times of famine
And chanting them words of hope to grow overly fresh and nourished.
Arresting the dead whose heads were bowdlerized on akin shame.
Such a dirty sterile cloth so white and shinning is found in there;
A graved white cloth buried in the graveyard of graves.

To these graves, talents once were green,
In the belly of a dark grave they all hanged meaning.
They never saw when eyes were blind,
Silence they uttered when mouths were sealed.
Now there reclines beneath this green tree
And this dirty white cloth of grave (a grave where two blue rivers meet)
Living graves buried in the graveyard.

That green tree crowns no boast better than that giant but empty fig
This Orunmila thinks not better than a fool,
For there lies beneath this six-feet-down
A people buried in the graveyard of brains,
Dying of drought when shores cry of deluge.

Look forth into this dug ground
What do your eyes see, (though the truth I doubt you shall succumb to)
There’s a man in this grave, (your eyes and thoughts he dons.)
Though bodily fresh and with binging breathe,
Yet death roasts him on a stake; soon he will join these graves in this wasteland.
Save he adds not again to the wealth of the grave; then save his grave:
For many lies in here, dead and living in the graveyard of garmented gifts.

Ajanaku-atenipa:  Ajanaku literarily refers the killer of Ajana. Legend has it that there was a man called Ajana who captured live animals and kept a sample of each kind. One day he was crushed to death by an elephant in his custody. Atenipa means, ‘the crusher of a human’.
Orunmila: A chief orisha in yorubaland who represents wisdom, knowledge and divination.

Mide Benedict