An Elegy to Eugy’s Wisdom

I was coming home to see you but the burdens

of growing a child alone turned me into a blur.

You must have remembered my arrival among

nine, all dotted behind you in the neat vegetable

garden of biannual rows our parents shouldered up.

They put eight impacted years between you and me.

You chose your wife who had my name and

brought children to walk in your kindness. I

carried the marks you fitted expertly like jigsaws,

leaned into the time you taught me, danced

recklessly to Elton John, the first music lesson

you pressed into my age.  How could I forget how

you shook confidence into suits, assured challenges

of your unwavering devotion when you held my hand 

through books bound with fabrics of unfamiliar flair?

You poured calligraphy into my ready hands and wants 

into my legs, flung open our living room door, pushed 

me gently to grow my own wings to absorbing America.

You slashed through hesitation and bouts from stories

Wild, Wild West told of America’s penchant for guns.

Death fought us in ninety-seven in tenacious Aba where

it upturned your centering gift with stealth and brought

your circle full force from your arrival in Anua Hospital

in fifty-one. Your birth erased the end of what would

have ended a fertile dynasty and even made prophesy

smile. You set that unwavering footloose ritual of 

journeying from Aba to be born in the best, the custom

only the Civil War broke and spun us inward to know

the outworld. You vanquished clouds, raised the bar

to none-to-compare. You, the gem, glow brightly in

death. From one whose head you deepened, I honor

your wisdom to fortify me during these arid years.

--Frances Ohanenye

Elegiac Poetry

--My dream has loved paper so much and for so long because it gave influence to the parched voice of a fashionista poet. Finding this outlet, that voice is replete with expressive sound.