Poem

NIGHT RAIN

What time of night it is                

I do not know

Except that like some fish

Doped out of the deep

I have bobbed up bellywise

From stream of deep

And no cocks crow.

It is drumming hard here

And I suppose everywhere

Droning with insistent ardour upon

Our roof thatch and shed

And thro’ sheaves slit open

To lightning  and rafters

I cannot quite make overhead

Great water drops are dribbling

Falling like oranges or mango

Fruit showered forth in the wind

Or perhaps I should say so

Much like beads I could in prayer tell

Them on strings as they break

In the wooden bowls and earthenware

Mother is busy now deploying

About our roomlet and floor.

Although it is so dark

I know her practised step as

She moves her bins, bags and vats

Out of the run of water

That like ants filling out of the wood

Will scatter and again possession

Of the floor. Do not tremble then

But turn, brother, turn upon your side

Of the loosening mats

To where the others lie.

We have drunk tonight of a spell

Deeper than the owl’s or bat’s

That wet of wing may not fly

Bedraggled up on the iroko, they stand

Emptied of hearts, and

Therefore will not stir, no, not

Even at dawn for then

They must scurry in to hide.

So let us roll to the beat

Of drumming all over the hand

And under its ample soothing hand

                                                                                                J.P. CLARK

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