Liberian Literary Magazine April Issue 0415
Falling in Love and Falling Freely A Love Poem
Viola Allo
I am not myself . For some time now . I am not . Or perhaps I am myself , another self I had not known existed within me . I am Viola . I am Viola falling in love . I am Viola falling and falling . And I wish there was a way to stop the falling . I am Viola falling freely . I have not been myself lately . I am Viola full of euphoria . Viola full of unfathomable bliss . Yet , I am so frightened . So terrified . Of all the falling and falling without stopping . I am now so full of fear and sorrow . So filled up , am I , with an unquenchable longing . I am Viola falling in Love . I am already fallen . I am a Woman . Heart . Taken . Woman . I am Viola falling , splintering , and I try to pick myself up , but I cannot . I cannot stand . I cannot stand up . I have fallen in love with a young man . A beautiful young man from Cameroon . I went for a walk one day . I saw a mighty tree in the forest . I stood beside that tree and embraced it . I felt in my heart that this tree could belong to me . I was a tree once . Once , I was a tree myself . And someone felled me . Someone sawed me , someone chipped me . Someone made of me a mass of paper , made bound books of me , made poems of me . I became a poet . A prisoner . I told myself to grow . Again . To begin . To rise again . I now fall into a new being . Truth is – and babies know this : To be birthed is to fall . To fall to the ground . To dream of being caught and cradled . To trust in the softness of the earth . I have fallen in love with a young man . A young man from Cameroon . Soft . Earth . Man . Given . Man . The one whose broad body is made of golden light .
The one whose laughter is an echo that ripples in the hills outside Bamenda . The one whose drinkable eyes are cups of clean rainwater . The one whose feet are the waterfalls . The one whose arms are the wind in the cypress trees . The one who himself is a tree , a towering eucalyptus tree . I went for a walk one day . I saw him in the forest . I stood beside him and embraced him . And I said : You belong to me . My heart pressed to his shimmering skin , his vast heart so full of fire , I also sighed and said , You are free . You are free . I will not cut you down . © Viola Allo All Rights Reserved
California Prodigal
Maya Angelo FOR DAVID P — B
The eye follows , the land Slips upward , creases down , forms The gentle buttocks of a young Giant . In the nestle , Old adobe bricks , washed of Whiteness , paled to umber , Await another century .
Star Jasmine and old vines Lay claim upon the ghosted land , Then quiet pools whisper Private childhood secrets .
Flush on inner cottage walls Antiquitous faces , Used to the gelid breath Of old manors , glare disdainfully Over breached time .
Around and through these Cold phantasmatalities , He walks , insisting To the languid air , Activity , music , A generosity of graces .
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