A bird perched on the fence for a minute\u2014<\/p>\n
its cooing brought me out of the house.<\/p>\n
There was so much color on its feathers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Its beak didn\u2019t jut forward but bent downward<\/p>\n
like in most of birds of prey, but this one didn\u2019t prey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t feed it so it left sooner<\/p>\n
than it used to when you were here, no grains<\/p>\n
to litter the compound with, but then<\/p>\n
there was no kind of fodder in the house.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was the kind of bird that knew its beauty\u2014<\/p>\n
perhaps a special thing for its species.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had thought it would cut me some slack,<\/p>\n
but, like you, it didn\u2019t, fleeing on instinct;<\/p>\n
like you, it left a trail of leaves in its wake.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I remember the first dry season I spent<\/p>\n
in that house you lived in until you died.<\/p>\n
Harmattan almost bent you double,<\/p>\n
dragging in its dusty perfume across miles<\/p>\n
and into every room, sparing nothing<\/p>\n
so much so I never knew I would ever<\/p>\n
be so expectant of rain; even the birds,<\/p>\n
the animals were having a hard time<\/p>\n
of all the charade that was the weather.<\/p>\n
Even the wooden shelves cried as they cracked,<\/p>\n
their grains warping into undulant hills.<\/p>\n
I was addicted to the city life.<\/p>\n
I tried to hide my feelings because<\/p>\n
somehow the weather benefitted you.<\/p>\n
You had never so stood at the window<\/p>\n
with such longing, in your eyes, to be outside.<\/p>\n
I looked into your clear brown eyes and tried<\/p>\n
to will the young agile person I knew<\/p>\n
who would walk miles with me merely to see<\/p>\n
what the landscape was like at the moment<\/p>\n
because, for you, no one stepped into<\/p>\n
the same landscape twice, for you the wind<\/p>\n
was always changing something, eroding<\/p>\n
either the soil, or the trees of their leaves,<\/p>\n
the rain would always wash something away;<\/p>\n
even the cities could not escape this.<\/p>\n
It was like a process of aging.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the wind brought more than dust<\/p>\n
and its empty smell: now a sweet smell<\/p>\n
but one which you doubted: maybe it was<\/p>\n
the smell of bodies carried over miles,<\/p>\n
maybe the dust was part of their bodies.<\/p>\n
I knew it couldn\u2019t be real yet I let<\/p>\n
myself to imagine it, as scary<\/p>\n
as it was, for didn\u2019t we hear about how<\/p>\n
the rivers, though how dried up they were,<\/p>\n
still vomited tumescent bodies<\/p>\n
from their silvery bellies, about how<\/p>\n
the beggars didn\u2019t wake up in the streets,<\/p>\n
their stiff bodies curled up like balls of wool?<\/p>\n
I tried to find things to love in this place<\/p>\n
but couldn\u2019t, rather reasons to leave<\/p>\n
were monthly stacking. Minna was almost<\/p>\n
like this and each day the people I stayed with<\/p>\n
tried to convince me to cut the place some slack,<\/p>\n
I took a piece of my clothing and quietly<\/p>\n
folded it and threw it in my traveling bag<\/p>\n
until one night I realized it was full.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was the kind of bird that knew its beauty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5833,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[6,1683,1724,1725],"class_list":["post-5832","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-environmental-poetry","tag-nigeria","tag-okwudili-nebeolisa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n