| ESIABA IROBI Laura
(For
Laura Posta)
May the future forgive me, Laura, for what happened to our love. I am holding its bleeding carcass in my hands as I intone this elegy in an evening of rotting rose petals and dead flowers. Like the drystalks of the ‘Orphan’s hair’, that rare plant whose leaves you plucked and gave to me on the banks of the Danube. I have preserved, in the vase of my memory, the stanzas of the love songs you taught me in Budapest, on the banks of the Danube. Tavaszi szel vizet araszt, Viragom viragom Minden madar farsat valaszt, Viragom viragom… Forgive me, Laura. My Hungarian love, forgive me, you who could speak the five languages of love fluently, forgive me. It was my fault. The phone calls I never made. The cards I should have sent. Letters I did not reply in time. The silences. How sad. How very sad. How still sad after all these moons and the eclipse of the sun we swore would never set. O! if only I could reverse the rotation of this confused universe or rewind the video tape of our love, erase the tracks of my betrayal, and replay, as I keep replaying, again and again, the track, "Laura" by Charlie Parker on this CD I bought in that cinema shop in Budapest on that night we missed the film and dined instead in that fake Indian restaurant on what street now, perhaps we could, like deciduous trees, begin again: Hat en immar kit valasszak, Viragom viragom Te engemet en tegedet, Viragom viragom But it is too late now. Too too late. As you wrote in your final card, ‘The Titanic has sunk!’ and forever. Forgive me, Laura. Someday I will learn to love with the steadfastness of the stone, not the wind. Forgive me. ‘Laura’ was first published in Sentinel Poetry Quarterly. October 2004 #2. Available to
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Esiaba
Irobi – a poet, playwright, actor and scholar was born in
the Republic of Biafra on October 1, 1960, and lived in in
exile in Nigeria, Britain, United States and Germany where
he passed away on May 3, 2010. He studied at the
Universities of Nigeria, Sheffield and Leeds, and held a
B.A. in English/Drama, M.A. Comparative Literature, M.A.
Film/Theatre, and PhD in Theatre Studies. In 1992 his play,
Cemetery Road won the prestigious World Drama Trust Award.
His books include Nwokedi, The Colour of Rusting Gold,
Cotyledons, Hangmen Also Die, and Why I don’t Like Philip
Larkin and Other Poems. He leaves behind a wife, Uloaku and
a son, Nnamdi.