Requiem: 5 By Wole Soyinka

Requiem: 5

By 

Wole Soyinka 

I shall sit often on the knoll

And watch the grafting. 

This dismembered limb must come

Some day

To sad fruition.

I shall weep dryly on the stone

That marks the gravehead silence of

A tamed resolve.

I shall sit often on the knoll 

Till longings crumble too 

O I have felt the termite nuzzle

White entrail

And fine ants wither 

In the mind's unthreaded maze.

Then may you frolic where the head

Lies shaven, inherit all, 

Death-watches, cut your beetled capers 

On loam-matted hairs. I know this 

Weed-usurped knoll. The graveyard now 

Was nursery to her fears.

20