On 'Nothing' Poem by Goodness Tchibueze

Before the elephant breaks the food-speaking drum,
And pestilence heals the land in the next recompensed
Beat; scour the scraps scattered in your minds,

Carry your brains on your wide opened palms,
Sieve me through the mesh of your own lights,
Seek me out in the dark light of heaven's slum,

In the debris of its burnt bodies and elements;
Where death cooks for the worms the souls of immortals;
Beside the abiotic blood sea,

At the gate made of smithen rafters and thatches,
Nigh the blossoming dry of the withered tree:
I am the cockerel's beak which despises provenders,

The airless wind that razes mountains;
The eagle-glory of the scudding dawn,
In which dormancy busies the marketplace;

The swiftness of the trudging dusk,
In which sleep keeps open eyes;
I am the foresight of blindness nay sight impairment;

The barrenness that boasts of many offsprings;
I am the audible dumbness that unbars deaf ears;
The Evil ready to die for the Good,

I am the proud penury that humbles wealth;
The earthworm that quakes the Earth from her foot;
Indeed, I flourish in abundance of dearth!

When Offense is docked, and Claims fly madly,
Make me the Falsity which defends the Truth;
When Strength dares you to war,

Make me the Weakness to win the war;
When no companions' hands reach to pat your chest,
Make me the solitude that embraces your breast;

When winter is the surviving season,
Make me the Love in intercourse with Hate;
When Knowledge fails to woo Ignorance,

Make me the foolishness that tutors Wisdom.
I am the buoyant Nothing vast in Everything;
Before the world were, i was, and still is:

Indeed, I begot Existence from the womb of voidness.
If you can find me, i am;
If you cannot, i also am,

For mine is instigating an interminable hunt,
Yours is deciding to partake of it;
The reward is Anything you make Something through me!

INDEED, I AM NOTHING!