January 3, 2024
#1. Falola’s Burden @71
(for all African scholars)
I am trying to bear witness
To African ingenuity
In my scholarship. And to aim
To do it so brilliantly that
When I am long dead future
Africans—all scholars— who search
For evidence of black excellence
Or witness or first-class thinking
In a past period will be able
To find my work beneath the pile
Of debris of history and time.
And history will come alive
For them. The past will not perish.
I am not dead, oh Africa!
Nimi Wariboko
January 3, 2024
#2. Falola’s Joke @71
Falola,
Any writer can laugh when his book comes out,
And it’s all put on many bookshelves,
But the writer who’s learned
Is the writer who can laugh
When his book’s put on many brainshelves.
Nimi Wariboko
January 4, 2024
#3. History and Time
Mehn, History and Time are not buddies.
History is the s(t)age of time.
Time is the s(t)age’s fourth dimension,
invisible, abstract, asymptotic.
Where they blur is trauma of the present.
Where they avoid one another History lies.
Where they fall in love History is trapped.
Where they fight History is meaningless.
For Time and History
do not know how to live together:
History mocks at Time,
and tale and tale and tale again
History traces Time in senseless motions.
Nimi Wariboko
