I.Father and Son
My son, my son, how can it be?
You are so different from me
Like your grandfather you seem to be!
What did I do to beget thee?
How is it that you are the fruit of my loins?
Where are your wrestling skills?
Where is your investment in land and yams?
Where is your machete to carry to war?
Where is your goat skin full of palm wine?
Where are the titles you have earned?
Why would one share the kola nut with you?
What is your measure for being a man?
It should have been the evil forest for you!
With my machete I did dispatch my charge!
His death was ordered by the oracle.
But it did not have to be by me!
No one will ever see any weakness in me.
He was the son,
I wanted you to be!
2. A Death Poem for Okonkwo
The white man's new wine
Has ruined my old goat skin
Gone the kola nut
This is the evil forest
I am already dead
lunch
the juice of a red, red apple
running down my chin
