Ben Okri: Transcending History

Transcending History

A stick is easily broken.

A tree is not so easily cut down.

And a forest has a certain grandeur,

Which draws to itself a mythology.

People gather, stories happen.

This is the friction and magnetism

Of all those lives, those histories.

There are many reasons

For nations to come together,

Form an informal family.

Sometimes those reasons have Injustice at their root.

Sometimes a compelling History brings them closer

For reasons better than Their troubled origins.

You can never tell what happens

When people hang out together

For cultural, historical reasons.

Families are formed not only of blood, But affinities. No family ever

stands Secure without the mortar of respect, Without the magnetism of

affection.

History sometimes shows that

We can transcend history

And wreath our flowers together

Weave our dances

Share our technologies

Strive for the blossoming

Of our mutual spirits.

But dark forces hover

When good people come together.

The tendency of the age

Is to split families and break

Up magical associations.

A willed entropy eats away

At the heart of our civilisation.

One has to be

Strong to come together.

One has to be

Wise to stay together.

Beware the false

Energy of the fall.

Harness the diamond

Power of the ascent.

Sticks are easy to break,

But a forest of awareness

Is a greater force than

Any family we can make.

Ben Okri’s latest work, A Fire in My Head, and his climate collection, Tiger Work, are both available now and published by Head of Zeus