The Fishwife
The fishwife in her wooden market stall
Tucks in a franc into her black brassiere,
Smiles as she hands over the fish. She is tall
Her teeth glisten whiter than the sassier
Neighbour’s, whiter than any woman’s, so white
I wondered if God knew she’d make it
Into a magnet for custom and light.
I did not ask her name, I wouldn’t pit
My halting French against her effortless river
Of Bambara and market French. I forget
What the fish tasted like but not the fever
Of curiosity, flaring as it did from a nugget
Of ivory that blinded my wandering eyes.
That woman was Senegal. Senghor’s woman
Immortal in her blackness, market wise
Bringing back tides of the musings of a man
On a land made for poetry, the perfect
Turn of every phrase. In all of these
The desert was ever present, its idiolect
Suffusing the streets with a certain ease
Found in the Sahel, elegant, understated
Borderland dexterity, animist bon vivant
Measured out in bright speech that elated
With the germinal wisdom of the sun.
Lagos – Nairobi: Impressions
The night flight alights
Like a passage falcon
On the outstretched arm
Of a cool eastern hunter
The voice of welcome
Speaks soft Swahili
And Swahili seasoned English
While the monstrous jet engines
Simmer on the wings. A drizzle
Is our tarmac company
Into the swarming caverns
Of Jomo Kenyatta
International. Black faces
Asian and Caucasian faces
Like ants of several races
We pass each other by,
Airport shops and the shops
Of modern moneychangers
Where we change dollars.
And this November, every
Shilling bears the image
Of a black Bonaparte. I count
In numismatic amnesia
My new hoard of coins
And plundered tribal memory.
–5th November, 2000
Akinmoorin
You yield your roots to me in metaphors
When we make a confluence of our dreams
And hero fellows hero to the hills
You yield a river full of age and fire
Where never rusty fishes swim
And crabs of ages watch the mien of time
Your secrets live forever roots in rocks
Deep as dance within your ancient groves
Where anklets of the dancers peal with song.
^We are grateful for the kind permission of the author to publish these extracts from his volumes. The first poem is taken from his The Sahara Testaments (2012), the second from The Rain Fardel (2005) and the third is from A Time of Signs (2000).
Tade Ipadeola (born September 1970 in Fiditi, Oyo State) is a Nigerian poet, lawyer and translator who writes in English and Yoruba. In 2013 his poetry collection, The Sahara Testaments (2012) won the prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature instituted by the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG). Also in 2009, he won the Delphic Laurel in poetry with his poem ‘Songbird’ in Jeju, South Korea. Ipadeola’s other volumes of poetry include The Rain Fardel (2005), A Time of Signs (2000). He has other notable works such as translations of poems of W.H Auden and Tomas Transtromer into Yoruba. He has also translated two of Daniel Fagunwa’s novels into English Aditu (The Divine Cryptograph) and Ireke Onibudo (The Pleasant Potentate of Ibudo) but remain unpublished.
Cover photo credit: Bioversity International
