ABIKU: A POEM BY WOLE SOYINKA

ABIKU

In vain your bangles cast

Charmed circles at my feet

I am Abiku, calling for the first

And the repeated time.

Must I weep for goats and cowries

For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?

Yams do not sprout in amulets

To earth Abiku’s limbs

So when the snail is burnt in his shell,

Whet the heated fragment, brand me

Deeply on the breast. You must know him

When Abiku calls again

I am the squirrel teeth, cracked

The riddle of the palm. Remember

This, and dig me deeper still into

The god’s swollen foot.

Once and the repeated time, ageless

Though I puke, and when you pour

Libations, each finger points me near

The way I came, where

The ground is wet with mourning

White dew suckles flesh-birds

Evening befriends the spider, trapping

Flies in wind-froth;

Night, and Abiku sucks the oil

From lamps, mother: I’ll be the

Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep

Yours the killing cry

The ripest fruit was saddest,

Where I crept, the warmth was cloying

In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping

Mounds from the yolk