Then And Now Poem by Isioma Isichei

That first time,

You said your love will always blossom
With perennial fluidity as rice leaves planted
On the surface of still waters, giving asexual
Birth to plenty more.

You said the green leaves of your love will bloom
Through arid ages with a certain ease like
Determined flower springing up fast with
Bud containing fluid that gives pleasant fragrance

To my body. I believed you then- lost in the landscape
Of your beautiful scenery. I tried to trace the simple
Origin of your rosy myth by plunging deep
But instead the water became stagnated

With rootless dirt piled up from your naked past.
The legend of you I once held in awe was now
Silhouette dissolving on the beach of your ordinariness,
Drifting into me from an empty distance, asking:

Will you let me go away, my love? I fluttered pulses
And stopped in my stead to cough out the anguish
Choking my throat. My eager eyes dropped with the
Pains of defeat and I caught the last glimpse

Of you walking away.

Now that you have crossed the Rubicon,
I walk barefooted, my footsteps carried with trepidation
Leaving gully impressions in the soil of the earth that
I wander hazily upon, as a troubadour of loss

Shouting: please, come back to me. Please, my love!
Yet I feel it, the throwing of my failing voice
Against the wall of my wish returning to me void
Like voice sent out returning as echoes.