What If?
John Talake 2003 (Lagos)
What If?
Wait…
Let’s examine this
wearing new eyes
What if
Death isn’t the bad guy.
Life is the hollow-eyed
kidnapper who stole us
away from the garden city of
light & love floating, as the
clouds.
Death is the river that leads
back home
?
Could it be
God didn’t create man but
man, gifted with imagination,
created God, like the sons of
baal, for mercenary motivations
?
It could be…
that dying is living & vice-versa
—maybe death is the birth of
dawn ( seeds die before living).
that death is a frozen lake,
solid, yet ephemeral like
mother’s last mien—
eyes shut, devoid of expression,
yet peaceful & comforting.
that mum is playing in a garden
now. that mother’s final
portrait is no sad departure.
What if
This is the tale of a little boy
whose grief-consumed heart
knocks mad/ the wishes of a
boy whose little hands are too
weak to exhume the bones of
his beloved; too weak to shake
the foundation of the world
Verdict:
Little boy, dry your tears, cease
praying for pigs to fly.
Little boy, dance with grief to
the dirge of Mother’s departure
Death is death, Life is life
Grief is the ache
that’ll never heal
About this poem
This is a poem that, at the beginning, questions certain traditional perspectives to human experiences and beliefs; and later submits to what is ( and a wound that'll never heal)
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Written on July 24, 2003
Submitted by johnt.08173 on July 24, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:11 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | xxxAbxxcdxxx exfcx edcghxxfgfxi Axxdjchx xxbji xhx |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 2,717 |
Words | 239 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 31, 8, 5, 3 |
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"What If?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/133971/what-if?>.
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