A  DANIEL  HAS  COME  TO  JUDGEMENT

(To Dan Izevbaye, Unforgettable Teacher)

Economical with words

But not so with wisdom

His quiet pen provokes the open page

To a protean profundity

Of rare richness and pungent sagacity

Rounded in its rhythm

Polyglot in its uttering

Mellow with the mythic melody of the Muse

Red, red run his favourite books

His rainbow harvests on our luminous shelves

His eyes set and steady on our Wisdom Ways

His Voice, keen and quiet, fathers a thousand songs

Modest and methodical,

This timeless thinker who plumbs

The leanings of  the deepest  words

Veteran Interpreter who cracks

The  code of  knotty  idioms

The Song is his soulmate, the story his solace

This shy Warrior who slays

The Dragon of Bullying Nescience

Born with a book in his hand

This Unforgettable Teacher

Who plies the fertile space

Between the head and the heart

How many trumpets can we blow

For this advocate of life and love

How many tons of gold can reward

His immeasurable capacity?

Niyi Osundare, one of Africa’s foremost poets and academics, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English, University of New Orleans.

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