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“I am an atheist because God does not believe enough in me.” – Alain Borer
Now that I sing God into stones
my village carved from his bones is
breaking the chisel
& the face I get
differs from the picture my mother described of my image
I rejected the crucifix when the priest, speaking Latin
& spicing Christ in harsh English vowels, asked me
to throw away my tongue
because it is tinted with the stains of my ancestor
because the sea rejected the slaveship
because I sang water with melodies only memories compel
I walked away from the altar with the body of Christ inside my mouth.
I am still not free from the colourlessness of my language
this sound of my words is strange to me because there are no siblings
to speak to, & I have no history to carry on
pages that show common kindred, or an Euphrates
where water is named after a collective colour
this is a sketch of people who do not live on the map of history
a brother says, “who knows you beyond the kitchen
verbs your mother used to make you? when history decides to drop its muteness,
will you dance to the drums calling from ancient Benin?
or, will your fragile legs dance bata for the Yorubas to disavow?”
he remembered to add, “Africa is a continent that fell from the whiteman’s mouth”
I have no history, not because
my people were not there in the beginning
when God wooed the earth with songs braided in water.
I am just the victim of the truth inside Ariana Brown’s mouth:
“The Whiteman will make you believe only what is written is true”
I am looking for freedom from my tongue
& learning where I will plant my songs
beyond memories of Apa, that city
in Kwararafa where my father ran
from leaving my brothers with prayers to Alekwu who would later change their language
I still trace dead tales inside this continent’s mouth
when my blackness was defined by myth men swallowed
in prefaces that will not make them doubt God,
myth that Horus alone could see & switched into silence on tablets by Meroe
those histories that water swallowed
when only a language was spoken in the Pangaea,
& my people, broken into Laurasia kept a single word
a memory that they spoke through God when he named Adam, a part of me
broke into the Gondwana with a different tongue, hence Babel was built
on the spot the pyramids sleep; my people, scared of the silence that comes without
being with siblings, moved to Apa & lived in confederacy in Kwararafa
I am a subdued history
clutching memories of a myth time has forgotten
Oko Owi Ocho is the creative director of Benue Poetry Troupe and his poetry collection We Will Sing Water is set to be published by Sevhage (2022).
“Now That I Sing God into Stones.” From the collection We Will Sing Water by Oko Owi Ocho © 2022. Sevhage, Abuja.
Afapinen 