"Twilight" by Kelechi Ezeigwe

Twilight comes with nostalgia of us.

The close of the day when golden rays begin to fade

When the sun departs with its glowing halo

And grey clouds overtake the world above

Then the atmosphere at the end of the earth’s horizon

Is suddenly this cosmos of complete serenity

And the birds, in gathered harmony,

Journey home in peaceful meditation

Twilight is here, full and grey

Breaking through distant forests, mountains,

Seas, cemeteries and sparse deserted fields

To shroud the earth in somberness

To envelop me, and you laying

Where you rest, ‘Gone with the wind of time’

Written as your epitaph

This moment brings memories of us coming with the

noise of the wind.

At twilight they unfold, hanging in the air as

Thick wools of clouds dyed with a tinge of grey

It brings back days withered away like summer

flowers

Days we alone lay side by side, lovers,

Boys, young and virile

The sky, like crisp paper, spreads above us

We long to reach and touch and squeeze it

And the glued gay stars would twinkle and drop

On the blissful shore of sea sands where we lay side

by side

Those were memories

The reminiscent book of past times

Soothing as they flip through at twilight

Bitter as they lay withered beneath your cracked

Cement grave, sprouting wilting grasses and wild

flowers

These memories bring me back here

Seated by the edge of your grave

To watch the hue of twilight on my face

In silence of the cemetery

Chirping of little birds perching

On broken crosses and fragile willows

Soaked on the feathers of swallows flying across

In slow motion, weary and melancholic

These memories bring me back here

I, now a broken fragment

You, gone from the hatred of this creation

Once upon a time

We always meet twilight, radiant

That moment love arches itself across the sky

A towering rainbow to behold

Now twilight comes grey and solemn

Breaking through to unfold gone days

Moments I realize again and again

How broken we are made

To search forever the earth for lost happiness

Kelechi Ezeigwe is a 400-level student of the Department of English and Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State.