We Are Flowers Poem by Taofeek Olalekan Ogunperi

(Tribute to a friend and a brother, Atoyebi Akeem. Akeem died on August 6,2017.)

I writhe this, in grieve, and it's not
Because before the idea might run
Into more lines, into stanzas
Into cantos, and into poems,
I may be done living.

It is because we are flowers
Brought forth from the earths
To glow in the sunlight until
A time when the night sets in
Unbeknown to us, and engraves us.

Truly, we wither, we know
But let us first blossom
For long, we ask the Maker
But He that keeps His words insists:
‘Not all shall blossom, for long'.

So, when one of us let down
His green flags and or surrenders
The yet not-glowing light within
His order, in our dis-ordered hearts, re-verses:
‘For long, blossom shall all not'.