Written piece
VERSES FOR NANSI
Adeyemi Adeojo
Nigeria
About this piece
A lyrical elegy of love and distance, this poem traces a friendship that stretches across borders yet remains alive in memory and spirit. Moving from Kinshasa to Tripoli, it traces geography with emotion, evoking a shared ancestry and a bond untouched by physical separation.
VERSES FOR NANSI
To a friendship whose contact
remains restricted to territorial borders,
but whose passion sublimes the tenuous line of mind, with love.
You whispered fervent hopes
Of old tunes into my ears.
Our today only brought fleeting memories
Of passing years,
Trapped in the reflective mirror of our forgotten tears.
Destined to a joint pathway,
We rekindled the sacred spirit
Of comradeship,
Of clan,
Of dotted tribes.
From Kinshasa to Mombasa,
Kigali to Tripoli,
The footprints of those who own us,
Vague to deceit—
Only a third eye can see.
From the plains where cattle were kings
And wildlife brought milk out of the earth,
You brought us hopes
Of stories from the blooming petals
Of black flowers, detached,
That withered in the arid sun of the Nubian Sea.
You said borders are erected by men,
and no bulwark can stop the formless border of the mind.
So we cried in wandering, till our voice
settled in melodious kind
Over temples, hills, castles long lost.
To Nansi Jo-sali Lurvendah, I render this song with love,
To a Kenyan brain and belle,
With tantric rhythms wafting from the Sikuti drum.
And yesterday…
We were like the earth and the sky,
Worlds apart, yet in touch.
Like two islands,
Isolated but siamesed by the constant
Touch of the salted ocean.
We flew trans-border and nestled on hope.
Hope…
That we could be like the air,
Wheezing tunes of love’s revolution
In every ear and every breath.