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The Call of the River Nun
I hear your call!
I hear it far away;
I hear it break the circle
of these crouching hills.
I want to view your face
again and feel your cold
embrace; or at your brim
to set myself and
inhale your breath; or
like the trees, to watch
my mirrored self unfold
and span my days with
song from the lips of dawn.
I hear your lapping call!
I hear it coming through;
invoking the ghost of a child
listening, where river birds hail
your silver-surfaced flow.
My river's calling too!
Its ceaseless flow impels
my found'ring canoe down
its inevitable course.
And each dying year
brings near the sea-bird call,
the final call that
stills the crested waves
and breaks in two the curtain
of silence of my upturned canoe.
O incomprehensible God!
Shall my pilot
be my inborn stars to that
final call to There
O my river's complex course?
— Gabriel Okara
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