Niyi Osundare
Àlùpàyídà / Metamorphosis
I stay very long in the river
And I become a fish
With a head made of coral
And fins which tame the distance
Of billowing depths
*
I stay very long in the fish
And I become a mountain
With a mist-cradled crest
And feet carpeted by grass
Which sweetens dawnbreath with jasmine magic
*
I stay very long on the mountain
And I become a bird
With a net of polyglot straw
And songs which stir the ears
Of slumbering forests
*
I stay very long with the bird
And I become a road
With long dusty eyes
And limbs twining through the bramble
Like precocious pythons
*
I stay very long on the road
And I become a cigarette
Lighted both ends by powerful geysers,
Ash-winged firefly on nights
Of muffled darkness
*
I stay very long with the cigarette
And I become a clown
With a wide, painted face
And a belly stuffed to the brim
With rippling laughters
*
I stay very long with the clown
And I become a sage
With a twinkling beard
And fables which ply the yarn
Of grizzled memories
*
I stay very long in s-i-l-e-n-c-e
I become a Word.
Àlùpàyídà = the Yoruba word for Metamorphosis
_____
Niyi Osundare was born in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, in 1947.
He is a poet, dramatist, and university professor,
now teaching in the USA.
Writing under successive dictatorial governments in Nigeria,
Osundare has always been passionate about free speech and
is political as a poet, knowing how very necessary that is in the
contemporary African context. “To utter is to alter” is his belief;
we must use the power of words.
