Poems

Hello Ladies!

I missed you last thursday! At long last, I am posting the poem I shared with you and another one I wrote today. The one I wrote today was inspired by a thought that occurred to me earlier in the day. It has been busy and I am planning my sister's wedding and yesterday we were on the phone reminiscing about the journey we traveled to get to this moment. We thought briefly about the painful hurdles we jumped in the past two or so years. Yesterday afternoon, I also wrote a letter to a friend of mine whose father passed away and having walked that road, in my letter I tried to convey the fact that there is no real magic medicine to make all the pain go away.

All these made me consider how many times I go through painful , stressful or trying experiences and look for anesthesia. Yet God's way is not the way of anesthesia, He empowers us to emerge triumphant. Jesus shows us that on the journey to triumph, on the journey that is life, there is very often pain that can not be numbed. Why did Jesus weep over Lazarus death when He planned to resurrect him? When was the cross such a painful ordeal when the end result was such a glorious redemption? Yet He comforts us, though it is not the mind and body numbing comfort of an anesthesia where you can not feel anything.

So my second poem in my attempt to capture that realization of God's non-anesthetic ways in words. I hope you enjoy.

Love,
Tinuke
Vows to my Mr. Perfect:

I am sitting here
Trying to write You a letter
About my most recent discovery,
Of who I will be to You
But the pen has no life,
The words feel confined, dry and plain
Wait for me, I am coming..

I want to kneel in your lap,
So my eyes meet yours
When you look down into mine
I want to tell you...

I will show valor
I will love You completely
I will be here when You need me
I will take Your children into my heart
I will raise them to know Your love


I will tell You ...
"You can do it"
"I believe in You"
I will boast about You
Brag to the world about how great You are
I'll fight for You when nincompoops
Insult Your love and grandeur


I'll hold You when you hurt
My songs will wrap themselves around your heart
When You are disappointed,
Look out your window and when the pebble hits the glass
Your eyes will light up and your heart will laugh
When you see me out on the street
Doing this my dance for You

I will care for those you love
When they are broken,hungry and poor
I will cry with them, laugh with them,
Teach them, heal them and provide for them.

Wait for me
I am coming,
To our secret place where
No mortal man satisfies but you
There, instead of a plain old letter
My eyes and voice will vow to You again and again:
" I will show valor..."

01/15/2009 - Tinuke Oluyomi


In Search of Anesthesia

In that cycle again.

Lewis says life is cyclical.
Up and down like the sine
with slopes, hills, peaks and trenches.

Today I am down in the trenches

Shouldn't trenches shield you from the fire above?
Bullets should whiz above my head
While I remain sheltered in the dug out cocoon.

I guess I have watched too many romanticized war films.
These trenches hold no shelter
The bullets rain down with no mercy
They seem to miss their destined trajectory and pummel me
Within these trenches

I have heard that some soldiers
When they ascend from the trenches,
Look for medicine to numb the experience/pain
Ale drunk but to no avail
Smoking pipes yield no comfort

I, a mere mortal
With no military valiance
Offer this advice to all my brave soldiers

There is no anesthesia for life in the trenches
Our only comrades in this trench are
The light of the Son,
The hope of tomorrow,
The emboldening faith and love.

They do not take away our pain, aches or struggles in this trench
But they, if we hold them tightly,
Will see us through till the battle's end.
They promise us, brave soldier ,
That while the sun still comes up and goes down
We will journey,
Over the trenches, on the slippery slopes, up the hill, to the peak
Where triumphant we see the bullets fall below and find our scars healed.

By Tinuke Oluyomi 02/04/09