'Hurrah For Thunder' by Christopher Okigbo

WHATEVER happened to the elephant –

Hurrah for Thunder –

The elephant, tetrarch of the jungle:

With a wave of the hand

He could pull four trees to the ground;

His four mortar legs pounded the earth:

Wherever they treaded,

The grass was forbidden to be there.

Alas! the elephant has fallen –

Hurrah for thunder –

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:

If they share the meat let them remember thunder.

The eye that looks down will surely see the nose;

The finger that fits should be used to pick the nose.

Today-for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday:

How many million promises can ever fill a basket...

If I don’t learn to shut my mouth I’ll soon go to hell,

I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell.

Christopher Okigbo was a major voice in the second generation of Nigerian poets. He wrote for just a period of ten years within which he made a significant contribution to African poetry in English expression.

He died during the Nigerian Civil War and he left  only one book of poetry entitled Labyrinths, an important historical testament, for the world to remember him by.

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