Ode to a rising sun

Do you greet the sun good morning on a sunny bright morning?

This is the exit from night’s strong grasp,

And the terrors that put us to sleep-

We slept in fear, covered in the horrors of our own imaginations-

We had seen fear so much we had become it.

Now we meet the sun in the morning, how do we greet?

Shall we salute with sleepy eyes still sore from much sleeplessness?

Shall we salute with sleepy hands from much strengthlessness?

Shall we salute with sleepy voices from much groaning?

We are weary for night’s hands have been heavy on us,

And we prayed to a god not seen-

We had forgotten that there was ever a god, or a God,

We had closed our eyes to all hope we ever held so closely,

And our natures had become vile, vile with the affect of our own apathy-

Our apathy put us to sleep, losing us in dreams of lost freedoms

(Had we remembered the taste of freedom,

We should know how to greet the sun)

And that was what we forgot- the taste of freedom,

We were lost in dreams of forgotten liberties,

Tied ourselves in chains made by our own hands,

Graved in our own souls to the earth,

It was the loss of dreams, herald the death.

Now we rouse in faint glimmers, as one eyelid cracks open

And the first flickers of light seep in.

It jogs our memories, bidding us remember what it was like to see the sun,

And our beings are awakened- first slowly, then with increased enthusiasm

As we recognize what the sun tasted like the last time we saw it.

But we had lost the beauty.

Now we pray for a beauty we do not know,

Asking for the fairness of the morning we have forgotten-

May we be beautiful again?

May the light fill our skin and show us to ourselves?

May we see the beauty of the morning?

This is our prayer,

As we greet with the morning, saluting the birth of dawn

As if dawn were just born upon our waking.

Now we should know how to greet the sun, birth of our morning,

Our eyes fully open like a flower in full bloom,

Like a flower in full bloom,

Like a flower in full bloom,

We greet the morning like a flower in full bloom,

Open ourselves to the sun-

We are born again.

                                                                        Opeyemi (ArTof_Mind)

                                                                        26^th February, 2014