Monologue of Mourning by Blessing Omeiza Ojo

“The fire does not speak when it catches a body,” Adedayo Agarau

This flame lands on the body of vegetation, skinned it,
draws desert maps on the land once christened Eden–
home of perfection, ferals’ fireside, camp of critters.
The squirrel, tired of a forlorn walk, hops into holocaust,
because what is left of the palm tree is ash, loss,
grief, ruin or any other word for fisting the wind.

Today, the repeated phrase of a bird song sounds elegiac
and I presumed, there must be forfeiture of eggs or little birds.

And there are little animate animals, now sculpture postured,
observing the wonders of fire from a distance, unsure
if they too would be blessed with homelessness,
asking nature of what essence is fire to humanity?

In the story I met in my brother’s mouth, fire has a way
of communicating through a body it possesses.

It’s more of a one-sided game, a monologue of mourning
in which the dwellers, all landlords, all broken into bits,
forget where they stand to view the nakedness of nature
was once a suburban garden or a woodland.

Blessing Omeiza Ojo is a black bard married to an Enchantress. He is the Chairman of Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Abuja. He is a contributor to literary journals with poetry surfacing in The Deadlands, Cọ́n-scìò, Split Lip, Olney, Praxis, and elsewhere. His literary awards include the 9th Korea-Nigeria Poetry Prize (Ambassador Special Prize), the 2020 Artslounge Literature Teacher of the Year Award, the 2021 Words Rhymes & Rhythm Nigerian Teacher’s Award, and the 2022 Maryam Aliyu Award for Best Teacher (Male). He is presently a creative writing instructor at Jewel Model Secondary School, Abuja, Nigeria.