Aubade | Ebuka Stephen
Aubade | Ebuka Stephen The sun sits in the lower third of the sky, heavy and warm like an old dog leaning its body against a shin. In the garden, the tomatoes have grown untamed again, their green vines are scenting the air with that sharp smell of things trying to stay alive, desperately at all cost. & I think about the slaves of then, how they carried themselves through the tough morning of their lives, holding their breath as if the world were a glass dish they might drop if they spoke too loud. Once, I thought resilience was an iron thing—hard and unyielding, built to withstand the hammer. But looking at the lawn, at the way the ryegrasses succumb to the blade and spring up by morning, I realize it’s much softer than that. It’s the willingness to be bent. It’s opening the windows and doors to let the breeze in. It’s in how we listen to the birds chirp their songs, and deciding to love the fragile, breaking of the day. Ebuka Stephen is an emerging Nigerian poet holdi...
