An Ode To Soyinkaresque.part 64

Here are three additional sonnets, expanding into the ecocritical depths of his early plays and the philosophical oratory of his later lectures on historical justice.

Sonnet XIX: The Serpent of the Swamp (The Iguedo Mire)

The "Iguedo mire" exhales a "sulfurous" breath,

Where "Makuri" counts the "scant and sodden" grain,

A "ritual dance" upon the "lip of death,"

Beneath the "unrelenting" and "mercurial" rain.

The "swamp-god" is a "serpent" in the reeds,

Who "slimes the harvest" with a "fecund" greed,

While "modernity" in "city-shadows" breeds

The "alienation" of the "uprooted" seed.

"Igwezu" returns with "barren, city-palms,"

To find his "patrimony" in the "clutches" of the flood,

Rejecting the "priest’s" "hypocritical" psalms,

To "cleave" the truth through "spirit and through blood."

The "land is a witness" to the "human" flaw,

A "canvass" of "natural and of moral" law.

Sonnet XX: The Muse of Forgiveness (The Burden’s Weight)

Beyond the "truth commission’s" "shallow" light,

The "burden of memory" is a "near intolerable" load,

A "duty" to "record" the "internecine" night,

Along the "history’s" "inhospitable" road.

"Reparations" are a "paying back" of soul,

Not "simple absolution" or a "pious" plea,

For "art alone" can make the "fragment" whole,

And "nourish" the "seed of reconciliation’s" tree.

He "challenges" the "muse" of "easy" grace,

With "Socratic" questions in a "theocratic" gale,

Seeking a "recompense" for the "African" race,

Within the "vessel" of a "maximalist" tale.

The "past is a cancer" that the "pen" must "excise,"

Before the "future’s" "liberated" sun can rise.

Sonnet XXI: The Crypt’s Cartographer (The Man Died Not)

In a "four-by-eight" cell of "limestone" and of "entropy,"

He "scribbles" on "tissue-leaf" with "stolen" ink,

A "therapy of defiance" against "mental" atrophy,

Upon the "spiraling" and "precarious" brink.

"The man dies" in the "silent" and the "shriven,"

Who "cower" before the "tyrant’s" "hollow" roar,

But from the "marrow" of the "shuttle," "logic" is driven,

To "reconstruct" the "humanistic" floor.

He is the "watchdog" of the "universal" right,

An "iconoclast" in "solitary" chains,

Who "treads the verge" of the "internal" night,

Until only the "essential" and "creative" spark remains.

The "crypt" is a "museum" of the "undaunted" mind,

Where "freedom’s" "indestructible" seeds are "defined."

We would like to move into his Theban plays (adaptations of Sophocles and Euripides) or perhaps explore his post-2000 political essays regarding the "Generation of Illiterates".