However as I grew older shyness overcame the confidence that I initially had and I did not get to interact with poetry again up until I got to university.

My sense of identity is that of an observer making sense of scenery that presents itself. More like a camera capturing what is presented as it interprets the images into photos. But I must admit that even as lenses get blurry.

Initially, poetry was just another subject in school, words strung together, one after the other. As a child, my mind was more focused on the empty cans waiting to be filled with sand or crushing biscuits into paste to bake into cake. I don’t know where the concept of time immemorial fits into the corners of my memory, but words have always lived somewhere in my heart. I just didn’t know exactly where, so I never bothered to visit.

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. 

I grew up enchanted by sound and rhymes, from my grandmother's folksongs to the English nursery rhymes I devoured.

Love is no longer shy smiles exchanged with bowed heads, or letters shared with each other in secret, with younger siblings acting as couriers. A woman’s love is no longer affirmed by her silence when asked by her elders if she loves a man, or how she avoids roads leading to her beloved’s house out of shyness, or how she runs away giggling when his name is mentioned. Love is not date nights on mats once a week, sitting on either edge with a lamp in between. Love is simply no longer silence and a smile. 

So, I understand what it means to come into the peace of wild things – like lakes – who do not tax themselves with the afterthought of thoughts.