The Observer
By: Don Pax
Yesterday, I laughed at the elders
Who poured palm wine on earth
Speaking to shadows.
Today, I find myself
Counting your footprint in the dust.
The market women say I am touched
When they see me pause
By your favorite yam stand,
Testing the weight of words
You will never test.
My grandmother’s proverbs
Dance different rhythms now,
Like broken drums
Seeking their lost skins,
Each beat a memory.
The baobab drops its fruits
On the empty ground,
And I understand at last
How a tree can cry
Without shedding leaves.
Even the village witch doctor
Could not prepare myself for this,
How your absence fills spaces
Like smoke from wet wood,
Bitter, thick, refusing to rise.
They tell me you walk now
In the land where termites
Build cathedrals for red earth
And ancestors wear crowns
Of morning dew.
But here, I keep finding pieces
Of your unfinished songs,
In the ground you partially consecrated,
In the story you never ended,
In the child who has your smile.
The elders were wrong,
You don’t just cross over
Like a river after rain.
You scatter yourself like seeds,
Growing in places I least expect.
Now I too speak to shadows
Not because they hold answers,
But because they know
How to wear the darkness
Like a second skin.
