A Voice Stilled at the Prime of Life

(In memory of Komla Afeke Dumor)

 

When the ancients gazed at the night sky,

a vast expanse shimmering with recessed

lights that seemed to travel from eternity,

they attributed a sacred order to nature

 

So Pharaoh’s serfs broke sweat, and raised

a monument to touch the face of heaven

And shamans consecrated the catacombs:

“From here shall Pharaoh repose for eternity”

 

Such effect as her effort bore,

By such feat, Egypt, with a fastidious care,

foreshadowed Euclid by millennia

So we are awestruck by an ancient edifice,

that has withstood the elements for millennia

 

Posterity, too, may by our genius be awed:

A glasshouse, set to sway in harmony with

unsleeping symphonic winds of the clouds,

Holds steady against subterranean shakings

 

Such functions as our tower features

By such form, it tends only the existential:

Neither the face of the outer world to seek

Nor catacombs, which immortalize the dead

 

But were our progeny to pause, and listen

to the sounds from our gleaming tower,

they would hear a haunting lament;

an echo of a voice stilled at the pri.me of life.

See, the grand house harbors bilious secrets

 

By Roland Akosah