Adhiambo - Gabriel Okara

I hear many voices
like it's said a madman hears;
I hear trees talking
like it's said a medicine man hears.

Maybe I'm a madman,
I'm a medicine man.

Maybe I'm mad,
for the voices are luring me,
urging me from the midnight
moon and the silence of my desk
to walk on wave crests across a sea.

Maybe I'm a medicine man
hearing talking saps,
seeing behind trees;
but who's lost his powers
of invocation.

But the voices and the trees
are now name-spelling and one figure
silence-etched across
the moonface is walking, stepping
over continents and seas.

And I raised my hand -
my trembling hand, gripping
my heart as handkerchief
and waved and waved - and waved -
but she turned her eyes away.

---

Gabriel Okara  (1921 - 2019) Nigeria
Source: Modern poetry from Africa, Gerald Moore, Penguin Books, 1963