THIS MAN OF OSAYE

there was a certain man of Osaye
who loved to dance,
and dance he would
to the forest of eni’karo:
this man of Osaye

he so loved to dance
that one day he met erhimwin’otor
beyond the far post
of aguedion:
this man of Osaye

there the spirits
danced with him
there the winds swayed
to his swift feet

this man of Osaye

and birds vomited
rhythmic shadows
as the grounds bent
to the gaily steps
of him who joined
the winds at will

this man of Osaye

the man danced and danced
and became the dance
and the spirit,
who once taken
stayed like breezing breath

this man of Osaye

he had drank from winds
and smoky pathways
where he sweetly left again
to farming lands
as he continued to roar dust
and unseen steps
from his warring feet
then unknown

this man of Osaye

and who says
when we pour libations,
only the ancestors lick their mouths
in anticipation
-of dying deities
and beggarly elements?

he had died
by the dance of the spirits:
this man of Osaye
he had drank
from the libation spot
where the dead
drum for the living
to openly dance
in the swinging automatics
of incomplete cowries
and fated ends:
this man of Osaye

he had become
a thundering lion
to only followed
the spirits’ dance away:
this man of Osaye

and at the hunter’s
aiming shout,
the dance became
a predator-god
who wears
the spirit’s mask
with this man of Osaye

and he lurched
at the threshing floor
from the willing hand
of the palm-wine’s blood:
this man of Osaye
when he sank
like shadow’s thread
in sweat’s pretense
of tricky coutre-passing
through same holes
of broken shells
and whiskers pulled:
this man of Osaye

for he had come
face to face
with the drying milk
from many mortal breasts
still in his dance of spirits

this man of Osaye

-Kenneth Christie-Atiti.
©2017.