Masquerades of Dreams Past | by Ehindola Peter

Mother dear, may I go to the village square to play instead of church to pray?

I know through pink chants and claps

I did not know the faces beneath,

Nor the deep brown irises

I knew not the braced neck,

The linings with many small stretches,

The cascading multicolored robes

  

I did not know the beginning in the mud,

Green frond and channel of mariwo* 

The groove cylinder inside

I did not know the arrival at sundown

Nor the constant circuit of a stone

But I did not know of a return if only,

In the background

The sleep alone, and tossing

On a sing pillow

The sheets for what they are,

The mattress and rocking iron bed

And my father and my mother in sleep

Once at Oki** in my dream

I was, myself visible and vainly

I could retrace the faceless shaft

Faltering as a web in dew

I became aware of the soft mourn

And the sound and the chant

It poured into baseless basin

From tied tongue and filled the basin

With creamy chrome of Adin***

I have seen fourteen postures

Several devastating swaying

But there in my dream haunted

Satin shapes with thin head

Stretching and making a fast circle

And a quick dance into oblique

Before me tall and garmented

Braced on plank foot and clipped-limb

I saw twice the two e-y-e-d

Greased with chrome-like lotion

And dripping through socket like erosion

Then asked me for participation?

I? No, visible and disguised

Could not bare the ritual Adogan****

Nor partake with nothing on

Could not be seen visible, how?

If I, still a spy of the forbidden

 

At the far end of my dream,

Only a few mile from the edge myself

The announcer's voice:

Am I but my dream?

Under a heavy Sunday sacrament

Or from the old world of plain ordinance

I? Only settling into a descent

Like a falling windowpane and pausing-

Took a toast from my root and rind

And arrived?

No, child, you may not go to play, but to church you may match for the evening sacrament.

*the young bud of flowering frond **a spiritual circle of abode for masquerades; it also serves as their entertainment stage ***local ointment carefully extracted from burnt palm kernels **** a local lamp shaped like the Catholic incense lamp; it is widely used in the pro-modern times when nights are perilous.

Photo credit: Femi Akeusola