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Niyi Osundare Sings For Yemi Ogunbiyi At 75

BY NIYI OSUNDARE

Step after step

We ply life’s Road

Through dust, through clay

Through the airy amplitude of the seamless sky

The winds whirl or whisper

In accents so brisk and broad

As the roadside grass sways to the rhythm

Of seasons which oblivion forgets

From the geography of Pain

To the archaeology of Pleasure

From the heart which knows

And the mind that feels

The Road walks us through

Its web of wit and wonder

Its house of endless echoes, its poetry

A running fare of hint and hyperbole

Pause

Hail, then, this Wayfarer

Whose feet bear the dusts of many roads

From far desert-fringes to the thirsty ocean

Polyglot who savours the glide of many tongues

Confluence of many rivers

Whose bridge prolongs the Road

Dibia* at the Crossroads who doctors

The riddle of the knotty distance

Rain, drought, rain

The Road molds the mud, distills the dust

Etches your memory on the endless milestone

On its epic span. Sun and star en-lamp your path

Step after step after step

Echoing footsounds re-mind

The corridors of the Moon

The Road never forgets

*Diviner-physician, an Igbo word

  Niyi Osundare

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