Three Poems, by Ojo Taiye

Black Summer 

after Torrin.GreatHouse 

I am a descendant of trees and birds. 
To be kind is to tell the stories of falling 
embers. This morning I walk into the land again, 
so, eerie now, burnt and blackened, deadened by 
flame and ash. Just like the others, I think of moon-
scapes, places where nothing can survive. Beloved, 
to quiver isn’t a new practice for me. My right arm 
aches from clutching hope, from learning that fire 
is somewhat a reckoning and a bomb break into 
my flesh. There are hints across the forest floors, 
where the trees fell at the back of their necks, where 
the marsupials who couldn’t find the boat of salvation 
were pushed into the river to drown. The whole world 
of gnats, dandelions, frogs and the kookaburras resting 
in the beauty of ash, and I feel above me this brutal truth, 
this arriving drench of summer, touching the back of my 
eyes, translating false-dusk into a koala with her new born 
joey, limping on her stubbed toe. Hundreds of trees have 
died on this land, I say, and my mother’s rosewood is one 
of them. The sky is brown stained, smoke stained and heat 
stained – this darkened home punched through and visible 
as cross hairs. A confession: even as the fires glimmers, 
apocalyptic, my first thought was of my asthmatic grandfather, 
sprawled across a mattress, coughing and holding an empty 
inhaler in his mouth. Each fire flare – a frayed nerve 
ending that wreathes his punctured breath. 

Red Bracelet

It simply happens each time I bring 
my fingers to my face, I remember you. 
I mean you – the girl embroidering an old 
wind in my heart. I can't explain this weight –

my face, your memory. In the glittering 
night, you come to me and it seems I live 
for the ways people in love penetrate each 
other. I have hundreds of names for your hair, 

for this, all of your fortunes spreading beyond 
the mist of petals. which of these plants will 
speak for you? The stars reveal this threadbare 
night, the apogee of you from my mother's 

makeshift shed skirted by rows of trees. No one
else comes to pay tribute to you – the sky turning 
over another day and I find buried among the roots 
of berries, your wild pansies. Time sinks, 

your voice around it doesn’t. In this act of waiting 
one beloved thing is gain, my childhood dreams, 
your passive world – we didn’t hold hands in that 
cold November evening, but the winds witnessed 

my desire to plant a kiss to the back of your neck, 
cheek and bellybutton. Some days I wish I could lay 
my head on your laps. Other days, I wonder if I can 
show your everything you might have missed –

The Wrench I Felt When Viewing Film Footage Of the [                     ]

In an olive grove, that’s not yet 
home, a woman sits on a wooden 
stool. She holds a dried gourd cove-
red with a woven net, which is tied 
off at the bottom, leaving a trail of 
loose strings. If I call a part of her 
body home, this would imply that 
she is holding the vestige of a once-
forgotten language. The News of the 
Windrush Generation. Too many 
miracles have happened. A missing 
totem.  A misplaced heirloom. Each 
marital vow unable to return the trees 
back to their root. Somebody please 
listen – in the book I am reading, 
history thinks we do not exist. Made 
of cotton and sugar. Memories growing 
like tumor from a string of rattled 
beads. The wind in disarray. Music as 
etymology of murdered time. As moon
light scripture. A window to rain. A distant 
evening. Footage of lost years. Ancestral 
voices. Mirrors as eyes. The scars always 
look the same. Each day, a creeping Atlantic 
world. The slavers are busy. A child born 
in the year of the Agbe. Another morning. 
The birds are still chanting. Hollow gourd. 
At the foot of the olive tree. The woman 
wears my inheritance. Speaks the language 
of faith and communion. Now, I marvel at 
the shape of desire and the music stops.

Ojo Taiye is a Nigerian eco-artist and writer who uses poetry as a handy tool to hide his frustration with society. Taiye’s most recentwork is largely concerned with the effects of climate change, homelessness, migration, drought and famine, as well as a range of transversal issues arising from racism, selfhood, black identity and mental health.