By Isaac Aju

In my Abiriba tradition when a child said things heavier than the child we say that the
child is an old man in the body of a child
And I would imagine ancestors speaking and communicating things through a child
Things the parents would often miss.
I would imagine ancestors trying to live lives they did not live while they were still here
I would imagine ancestors bringing stories wrapped in wisdom
A child saying things heavier than their mouths
Adults turning their heads to stare at the child,
The child not really understanding what he had said
Or whom he reminded the adults of
Maybe they suddenly heard the voice of their father long dead in the voice of the child.
Maybe they saw a streak of their grandfather’s behavior in the child
So they turn to stare
But not too long
So as not to make the child feel important.

On our way back from visiting my cousin brother my mother said he reminded her of her
dead brother.
He speaks exactly the way his father spoke, she said to me.
Full of wisdom, full of quiet power.
I would have loved to analyze the topic

But of course we were Christians
There are things we shouldn’t be talking about
Even things as important as how our ancestors are always present in us,
Watching, quiet, but present.
We Christians
We would rather be quiet about some topics rather than address it directly.
I wanted to talk about the idea of reincarnation and ancestral presence
But I held my tongue.
We were Christians.

Isaac Aju is a Nigerian poet who has appeared in Poetry X Hunger, Writers’ Journal – Live And Learn, and The Kalahari Review. He was the first Nigerian poet to be interviewed by Flapper Press Poetry Cafe based on his historical poems about the Igbo people of Nigeria. He lives in Nigeria, where he works as a fashion designer.