DO YOU REMEMBER ME?

Do you remember me?

I was the breeze that blew your sails

As it billowed across uncharted seas

In lecture halls and libraries.

I was the candle flame that drove away

The cobwebs of ignorance

And grooves of darkness

That shunned the illumination

That Alexandria’s Lighthouse promised.

I am that which penned Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex;

Stood at Galileo’s elbow

When he shouted ‘Eureka!’

I fought alongside Alexander the Great

When he began the carving of the ancient world.

I was there when the Great Chaka bested Zwide

And wooed the beautiful Noliwe;

I watched as Oduduwa turned his face towards Ogodomigodo, 

And Eweka the great overcame the south to the west.

I saw Pericles struggle

With marble in beautiful Athens

And Socrates question the youths

From foolishness to wisdom and back.

I sat with Marx while he propounded socialism

And held Nietzsche’s hand

When he glorified the Aryan race.

I tossed and turned with Gates

As he polished Microsoft to megabucks.

Yet I strode with Ghandi along the salt mines

In Great Buddha’s country

When the revolution for freedom began.

I considered with Dickens

The fate of the British poor in Oliver Twist

And motivated Columbus

To circumnavigate the earth crust

With hopes of reaching a rich coast.

I served with Mandela

While he languished in enforced solitude,

After I had stumbled alongside Lincoln

When the death became too much.

I believed Herbert Macaulay's grand dream 

And considered with Soyinka, the culture of his people.

I was Captain Hastings

In Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes;

Clark's Abiku, Ngugi's Petals.

I am Abraham's Mine Boy

The oracle at Thebes

In Herodotus’ ancient Greece.

I was the she wolf

That breastfed Romulus and his brother;

The shining light

On the brow of the apostles

And the designer of the Tower of Babel.

I am the cowried feet

that dance to unseen beats;

the scarred face that returns

again, again and still again.

I

I am the poetry, the song;

The prose, the word;

The drama, the action;

The essay, the thought;

I am the muse, the inspiration

Separating man from the crowd.

Do you remember me?

Photo Credit:  http://bostonnextstep.com/