Pride

Adebanke
Where are you?
My child my child my daughter
Ade with the cat's eyes
Where are you?
You were walking amid the marrow-grass and asphodel
When the fronds came between you and the tribe
Now the sun sets
and the red roars begin
I take lion's bane
That elephant spear which ends life
Many have died on it. It slew
Black Mane, that old feline warlord
That day my face was scarred with fire-ants
The day I became a man.
Come then, fanged sleep, and bite away
The conversation of the neck and vertebrae
Belay the noise of life
Unknot thought
Be the little death of the mind
I do not fear you.
I would rather eat death
than see my child torn.