“I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with the forethought
Of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Wendall Barry, The Peace of Wild Things
There is something daunting about the creative mind. The emphasis it places on the mundane very much like a mother hovering on a child. She sees the sparkles in his eyes, laughs at his laughter and notices the crease on his forehead before anyone else. A poet is a mother to this world, particularly to the culture within which he exists. He follows every line, unable to resist the beauty he sees in the subdued dignity of a child begging on the streets, this feeling soon turns to one of sadness, then to a sense of anger and a need for change. In simple words, the poet is insane. Following every current as it is found. Wendall Berry’s poem, The Peace of Wild Things, explores the escape of this struggle – though only for a while.
Langston Hughes, in his The Negro Speaks of Rivers, confesses:
I have seen rivers
Ancient dusky rivers,
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
A poet in his observation of life, because he is human, slowly gets absorbed into it. I always describe it for myself as walking with a storian in my head every day. It’s like an overload of so many things – ideas, thoughts, questions, analysis, reflection, and sometimes boring narrations of what one is experiencing in which you are the character.
Berry’s poem gives me a sense of relief; a moment to breathe with him in this memory. You see, it’s not just about being a poet. Poetry is an amplifier. It amplifies your experiences and perspectives and the way you interact with the environment.
My experiences growing up are characterized by very strong emotions. When I write, I write from the archives of these emotions in relevance to what it is I am interacting with. This can be quite overpowering, leaving behind remnants of old feelings sometimes either as a way of gratitude for the present, longing for what is lost, or confusion for how contradictory theories and biases can be. And then within all these come rare moments of stillness.
Think of a river at night, stars above it, strangers away from you laughing and clinking glasses and you in the camouflage of normalcy.
Here in Abuja, I sometimes go out with my husband to this club by the lake. Somehow, they got beach sand all over the space and I like to take off my shoes and feel my feet sink in. We go at night when it is cold. The water is still and the city’s lights reflect all over it. For a while, I’m just a person in a world of people, drinking malt. I forget my husband (who I wish to sell by the way) or the fact that I’ve been drifting off into the hut in my head where I hide from life’s shenanigans, particularly those of my nearly three-year-old.
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.
I think that in writing Girls and the Silhouette of Form, I did try to explore something a little different. Something I’d call the peaceful essence of chaos. The collection was fast and natural, really unforced. The time, though, in which it was written was characterized by violent new beginnings, change, burnt bridges, and unexpected betrayals. And, while I fought to stay sane and keep my head up as the queen that I am, I arrived at these poems with subdued grief; with the weight of a thing sprouting.
Order via Rovingheights HERE
I am the man in the arena
Lost
Sweaty
Torn
Here and there
Like the idea of a broken head!
(Pg 48, Girls and the Silhouette of Form)
One thing Berry and I strongly share through his poem and my collection is faith.
I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light.
- Wendall Berry
You are a crescent of duas made out of trials
And dirges of endings that never ended.
- Star Zahra
Her first poetry collection, The Dance of Dawn, was published at age 17. Her sophomore, Girls and the Silhoutte of Form, was published by Masobe Books in 2024.
- On Peace and the Essence of Chaos || Star Zahra - January 29, 2025
- Festival of Drums || Star Zahra - May 11, 2021
- Merging Words and Faith | Star Zahra - February 7, 2021
