IRI: An epitaph too long…

Dear IRI

Your soul vied for a new mask

as you regained your place with the mother earth.

Your source profaned a rumour diverse

which ate deeply into the sour relief

of a deity’s remembrance.

It was your story, dear IRI, pungent and induced.

Yes, the homilies do so but tirelessly inadequate

to restore the lost among our memories;

but we are humane: spirit enough to bestow gain

upon our losses and joy where slips the weeping stream.

Yes, we are weak and in our weakness should strength be birthed;

for we know naught and the vice of our ascension is our own existence.

Dear IRI,

As your soul begins its new path into the great enclaves

I have found bits of your folly near-wise:

We breathe life – solely – too much

that we become distant from it; in that those whose hearts

beat no more wield even connections as we.

Alas! To the shame of adversaries unknown:

We are our own (folk)lores

And this you thought and teach me still

That some of us are made great and few greatly made

That there in our weakness is strength

And in our silence is resilience.

Dear IRI,

As your unending beginnings approach; timelessly:

Greet those constellations with the grace of a warrior’s heart

And when the universe bows to the greatest rapture of existence

We would meet…

Though you flourish in a void of forgotten

and your inked place dried to a painful barren crust

Though the untrue epitaph besets the truth you lived for

I hope you meet, still, with the Temple from whose veins

Fate kneads the folds of destiny:

Creator from whose gourd an infinite desire was quenched

Dear IRI,

I hope your darkness became light

Before you – the soul – bade the earth goodnight.

Olatunde Obafemi is a student-writer from Ondo State, Nigeria. He is an indie author of two novels and curates a blog: