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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