Ode to Myself

Author(s): Solomon Deressa

Source: African Arts, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Spring, 1969), p. 60
Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3334404
Accessed: 01-05-2020 14:13 UTC

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 Cafe.. T'errace

Je regarde des milliers defemmes passer

je contemple la volupte se tortiller
percer: desfrangaises pressees
Mosebol e ( iles from Elsinore) percer: de grosses orientales onduler
percer: des somalies se balancer
From a mountain-top approaching sea percer: des anglaises deliberer
to see, is to behold a cleft sky, percer: des ethiopiennes banalement marcher
earth penetrating the opening Per se: et cetera. . . percees
black green, sawdust from a dream
dry-green, cracking of heart-beats J'ai vu: cesfemmes aux talons defer
as I go down J'ai vu: cesfemmes caresser la terre
awalking? Arolling? Per se: subir toutes cesfemelles pressees
Chinning-up on a sombre sea penetrer! tous ces beaux corps 'a percer.
thrown in on a bed

to sink to float to board

for another opening.

Translated from the Amharic

Praeyer

Make theflameflow and the fountain smoke

On an adamant floor a handful of sand I'll sow
Fragile pebbles to harvest come the season of dearth.
There is not much else to do Ring the Child Alive
Don't you see, the castle's heroic gun-rest
Is asfrom today afavourite suicide spot. His temper it is, he thought,
Though it's his mind he lost
Crystal images to skin ourselves on, 0 Lord. Gathering waif-ends and shells
Combing a cold deserted beach
For a child a thousand years dead.

A child is a child alive or dead,

He told himself, and years don't count
So much as the colour of shells
Ode to My?self They are foot-prints on the sand
And the ebb will wash them out

And if the flow falls stubbornly short

Shall I someday be forgiven Why then we shall raise a cathedral
My unrelaxing obsession And with turquoise froth dot it with spirals
With the tone of silence Even two or three if need be
And make bells of the shells
Turn the sea into a gong
To ring the child alive
Disturbing his innocent slumber
And then lull him back to sleep.

60

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