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I am that song you nod and hum to but still can’t sing along with, because, sometimes, it’s too deep. Yet, it flows, attracting passersby who know nothing of the sadness within. ...

Ikeogu Oke was a Nigerian poet and journalist who died in Abuja on November 27th, 2018, at 51. He hailed from Ohafia in south-eastern Nigeria and was considered a deeply spiritual person. He sought to embody traditional African beliefs, notably wearing the Ohafia war dress to high-profile events to highlight his Igbo heritage. 

Back to Sidi. I continue my reading or misreading of his poems. I am searching for that single line in “Gathering of Spirits” that would resonate and strike me as a thoughtful punctuation of our proselytism.

Thus, it is surmisable that whoever will contemplate the past eternity during which the world was not in existence and the future eternity during which it will not exist, will see that it is like a journey, in which the stages represented by years, the leagues by months, the miles by days and the steps by moments.

At the same time, I read, with the whole world, a terrifying truth: an estimated one million Uighur people are detained in camps, arbitrary, by the Chinese government. So, I heard the poems with a melody of nostalgia and rhythm of un-defeated strength.

No one wants a gathering of aunts. They will sit in a semi-circle, with me before them: head low and my shame a halo above my head. They will pass my poem from one bewildered hand to another. It will be a love poem. They will shake their heads; make a valley out of their mouths, clap their hands, and let out both audible and inaudible sighs. They will look at me with eyes carrying both disappointment and wonder. They will wonder how I am able to write all these things. Wonder how I even know these things exist, the child that I am. They will try to reconcile their sweet daughter with the stranger on the page. Then they will ask for the identity of the one who has taken my heart..

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