Gathered Dreams Poem by Diipo Fagbolu

They ask me why I listen to music of the old
I answered ‘we will all get old soon’

They say I live in despair
I said ‘like miracles every man’s woes finds him eventually’

And now they are asking ‘why can’t you find love’
In reply I said, ‘Like every crook, like every saint, I love’
I love to love
I love the sons of men and their sons
I love greatly their daughters too
More than the common man could, I love
And was and is always loved

While I learned ‘twinkle twinkle’ I gathered little stars
On cloudy nights I pluck these stars from the pockets of my heart and paint them on the pages of heavens
I collected smiles on the path to my granny’s farm and trapped them in the tenderness of my palms
I fell in love first with the lilies then the whiteness of their petals
The cranes showed me the sun— I committed passing rhymes of clouds unto my eyes
The orange of twilight showed me the ambiance of dawn and schooled me in the art of bringing forth what never was

One afternoon when I was yet a child I found rainbow— I craved beauty
I searched and searched
Through the leaves of my father’s books and the faces of my peers, I looked at peaks of hills and peered into the depth of our ancestor's rivers but she was not to be found

Long after I stopped looking
Beauty revealed herself to me
While looking at things unseen, I saw her.

I was a child one moment, the next I became a MAN.