The Best of a Polymathic Scholar and Writer : Toyin Falola on Clara Adeyemi
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
The Best of a Polymathic Scholar and Writer
Toyin Falola on Clara Adeyemi
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
''Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
An absolutely magnificent piece by Toyin Falola. Dramatising nature's seeming mirroring of human pain, yet experienced as an outside world oblivious to the turmoils of the heart. Falola's characteristic simplicity of expression is in action, yet evoking elemental, primal, human and natural realities in subtle but potent force.
Remembrance: Clara Adeyemi
Toyin Falola
2nd January 2020
Privately Distributed
For Labi’s wife who started 2019 with us but did not make it to its end. You cannot see me at Ibadan and not see Labi around me.
We have been friends since the 1970s, and I knew Clara when she and Labi were still dating. Borokini Jide Owoeye, Agbakin Labi Adeyemi and I move together at Polo Club and other spaces. Clara followed me to events, and her last one was with me at KWASU, Malete.
I know Labi does not read poems—hopefully, he will read this one.
Remembrance: Clara Adeyemi
(For Clara: our wife, our mother, our friend)
TF
Today the world remains the same; the birds
Howl and leap into the air, and your memories
Return as sequences of past events, and the sound
Of your laughter that still lingers in the air
In your room that remains I search the wall
For your face; for your picture; for the words
Of love you might have scribbled on the calendars
Before death took you to the state of eternal silence
Clara, I love you the way the
Earth loves the touch of rain; the way
A mother loves a child, and the way
A child loves his mother
Each day that passes I long for your presence
For the shawls of your tender words to cocoon me
As your memories run to me as a rain of grief,
Soaking me each moment my eyes swell in tears
But today, the world never changes
It is another year, and the world
Still remains the same; the earth still consumes
More bodies, and the breeze still blows
Here, I still long for you, even when
My prayers voyage in the wind to your grave,
I still crave your presence as arid land
Craves the heavy downpour of rain.
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2022 12:04 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>; Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>; Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Best of a Polymathic Scholar and Writer : Toyin Falola on Clara Adeyemi
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