November Begins.

—after Adeyemi Samuel

..I am still capable of beautiful things

It is the close of the rainy season,

and, like these final drops, I am

slowly drifting away.

Lately, I've been preoccupied by

the weight of my presence.

Life, what trick have you gotten up

your sleeve for me?

Me— bushy hair. Me— shaky hands,

broken diastema.

At the mouth of his poem, my friend Adeyemi,

Says, “I am still capable of the things

I am yet to become."

And that is what scares me;

How nature always takes its course,

How the baobab does not, of its own accord,

choose to become twigs of bones.

But I have beheld baobabs bombarded by beauty—

filled to the brim with grins

—Life welling up again like it never left.

This is the miracle I bid November bring.

O, November,

Tell me I am still capable of beautiful things.