Here -- containing bits of mathematical terminology -- is an excerpt from "A Poem for the New Year" by Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo (1932-1967).
from A Poem for the New Year by Christopher Okigbo
Where then are the roots, where the solution
To life’s equation?
The roots are nowhere
There are no roots here
Probe if you may
From now until doomsday
We have to think of ourselves as forever
Soaring and sinking like dead leaves blown by a gust
Floating choicelessly to the place where
Old desires and new born hopes like bubbles burst
Into nothing – blown to the place of fear
To the cross in the void;
Or else forever playing zero-sum game
With fate as mate, and forever
Slaying and mating as one by one
Our tombstones rise in the void.
Christopher Okigbo is one of the most celebrated African poets from the twentieth century. Born in Ojoto, Eastern Nigeria in 1932, he studied the classics and was a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, before joining the Biafran side during the Nigerian Civil War. Since his death in 1967 during the war, Okigbo has become legendary in African poetry and as a source of inspiration for younger writers. The complete text for "A Poem for the New Year" is available here.
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