Submitted By: Karo Umukoro

If tonight as I lie
The cow-hide drums in my heart
stops beating in tune with the rhythms of life,
And the pulse of my wrists
stops rhyming in harmony with the ticks of time,
and the rivers swimming in the pipes of my veins
dries up as the lake in the arid desert,
and the lids of my eyes close tight
as the flower's petals at twilight,
and the sweet voices of my family
voiceless and still as a cemetery,
and the night's zephyr only pipes the voices
of my ancestors who bid me come
from the white cloud to my weak ears,
Then the inner eyes of my imaginations
turn blur and dark as fog,
Suddenly,my mortal clay grows cold
and stony to stir...
Leaving death's chest to rest on me
Where shall I go from there?

©Karo Umukoro, November, 2002