Okigbo III: Vanitas Vanitatum 

-Patrick O. Okigbo III | Sept 1997

I saw a seed, a little dream
Become the king of the forest
Through thick and thin, it fought
Only to be chopped by a peasant lumberjack
What a dream!

I read of a damsel
A beauty beyond reproach
Who went from the reading room to Buckingham
Dined with powers and principalities
Only to be hounded to her death
By low life death-o-razzis

I saw a man (whose words I revel)
trick death on the battlefield,
and even won a Nobel
yet felt so empty, he took his life.
So very empty.

I saw a man, a royal priesthood
Give up his learning
For a shawl of Freedom
Yet got paid with a bullet
from him he had slaved for.
Life! What art thou?

I saw another, a man of grit and valour
Reduced to a destitute
For the warmth of a virgin’s bosom
What great warmth!

I heard of a God who was man
Or is it man who is God?
Who though high, lived low
Who gave His life that we may live
Only to be killed by those He came to save

I beheld a thief,
the wise thief he is called
Utter a word at the right time and
Stole paradise forever
Hmmm!

I heard of one
Who had the wisdom to pray for wisdom
But had no wisdom to keep the eves at bay
thus fell to the vice of old
What great wisdom!

I, like the man of wisdom
Have search the books of old and now
And reached a conclusion
That life is a vanity of vanities
A round and round that goes nowhere.