Seaside Reel – 50 Years After

Staring out to sea from Ostania shores

Suddenly, distances I had never swum

Heaved, rewinding to a close goodbye –

A time out in Badagry that nearly

Timed out, terminally. Land folk

Should learn to read sea omens. My

Campagnola, hidden in a palm cluster

To deflect the curious – the Atlantic salt

Ate through its night eyes. a brand

Now obsolete, a seasoned forest raider, 

Many years of service, an alter ego.

Badagry’s Point of No Return was

Nearly named for me. It’s resurrected.

Restored  to active service, dismal history.

A  swollen staging post for a new 

Slave manifold – this time dead willing –

A wish that’s mostly granted. Their hopeful 

Eyes feed plankton, sharks. Their spirits

Roam the  shores of Lampedusa, Ostania –

Seeking greener pastures in grey mists.

Sibling elements have corroded – deeper

Than headlamps, chassis, or steel fender –

Their ever eager flesh. The sea partners

Wind and salt, their mission reads- corrosion.

And the mind parts the misted distance

To that sandfill memory, nineteen sixties.

The wasting age of migrants yet undreamt,

Unpredicted. Stowaways were rarities.

Heroes, Jason’s black Argonauts, pursuing

The golden fleece. Fagunwa’s Akara-ogun.

Braving monsters, reaping wealth and wisdom.

Dreamers in pursuit of the alchemical stone

Ulysses seeking knowledge, or simply

Adventurers. Romantics. The long sea

Voyage beckoned. They responded.

Stayed for ever, or re-visited, dispensed

Exotic airs and flair. Envied. Veterans

Of London, Paris, Manchester, Rome

Raconteurs of gold-lit paving stones,

Obliging genie from Aladdin’s magic lamp 

But still recall how sea mists ate through

The chrome of my Campagnola. I knew

The rivers, not the sea, an honoured denizen

Of  forestries of Oke-iho, Oyo, Iseyin,  

Makurdi, Upper Ogun, stalking game 

Luxuriating in the land’s diversity –

Mambila, Bida, Mokwa. Fitfully, the sea

Partnered land as mood differential, offering

Sanctum but  – tuned to a different liturgy –

Surf carols, wave recessionals, each

Ministering to that frequent need – Solitude.

Instinctive squatter, a beachhead chalet

Offered free tenancy for a while.  Peace. 

Locked in its lonely benefice, 

An Olivetti typewriter my workhorse,

Slaved through pages night and day

Fashioning a new text for the stage, an idyll

Free of distraction. Alien sun-worshippers

Dallied with locals and returning

Fishermen, children dodged in and out 

Of hanging nets, astride sand castles, all 

Safely distanced. The wind alone linked us, 

Echoes, the smell of smoked fish, faint 

Hawking tunes the only conversation. 

But the salt wind, silently at work

Gouged its warning on the metal slate

Complacently in hiding. Bravely it endured

Teeth marks of spume borne piranhas

All five nights and days facing the wind.

Sea salt and metal do not dialogue peace.

The chrome turned rust and curled tinsel peel.

A warning lay parked in a Campagnola – as

The scribbler labored, so did salt and wind.

The sea patiently nursed its turn. 

The drudge deserved his hour of rest – a pause

From hard labour.  The salt sea beckoned,

I waded in shallow waters, splashed,

Yielded to the sea caress and lay backwards.

The mind drifted. As did encasing flesh.

The tug was sudden.  A force malignant

Seized the offering by the legs, jerked it 

Thereunder. Thunder roared about his ears.

Spun him upside down, slammed a gasping

Rag against invisible wrecks, coral stings. 

No wonder, that portion of the beach

Was deserted.  It lacked signposting – 

Home of undertows. No one had thought

Of inland scribblers sneaking on the sea

To craft dialogues in abandoned huts.

Legs wrapped in water whorls, head 

Hurled against seabed – never was sand

So hard, so relentless, an unequal fight to break

To surface – still, it ended in my favour.

Only a brief victory lap remained, shore bound 

Reunion with Olivetti , Campagnola,

Reminiscences of how I lived to tell the tale.

It proved  the longest journey ever. Why

Was the land receding? And now, time

Also vanished, taking the faded land with it? 

The sea mist parted, the puzzle ended –

The sun was poised over sea, not land. A mind

Concussed had misread the sun suspended 

Over nets of safety. Sea waves swallowed

The swimmer’s loneliest sigh of heart’s depletion.  

A glimpse of  sharks on the horizon and –

Desperate strength returned to leaden arms.

Turning, in mocking distance, he saw 

The weekend picnickers. They seemed 

Mere homunculi  through misted glass  

As, despairing, he reordered compass points.

The shoal of sharks was magic. It worked

Faster than the fastest energy drink.  

An outboard motor, amphibian

Campagnola,  propulsion rocket

Yet unpatented. Fear demolished distance

As arm strokes, reinvigorated, drove

The drifter nearer land, swallowing brine.

Time to risk hoarded strength, seek help

For that final safety stretch. He raised

One arm, alternated, waved the other 

Relaying a frantic SOS to the living world.

Sublime the sight of arms responding – help

Would come breasting for the final surge!

The heart returned to stone. They resumed

Weekender end of day motions – folding mats

Herding children, draining final dregs

Of beer and palm wine.  They wrapped up

Leftover fish. Again, the plea of flailing arms

Earned only a cordial wave of numbing cheerfulness.

Wind blew the anguished cry back to sea

As backs were turned on a postcard scene 

In gradations of the sinking sun. Silence

Wrapped up dusk on the abandoned beach.

He rode the waves back alone. It was

A lonely ride. At last, a parting froth

Flung his carcass on paved sand, a beached whale.

The waves retreated, gathered strength,

 Returned as if to drag the castaway 

Back to Olokun’s ravenous depths. A spluttering

 Human crab, he clawed, he crawled to safety.

They were not sharks, I learnt thereafter,

Just – dolphins, dusk callers on shore dwellers.

A misreading to forever serve burnt offerings  

To gods and goddesses  that launched the flotilla.

If the dolphins only knew, they had saved 

A land predator justly served, now turned game

For spumy nets and traps of sea vengeance. 

The plaint of abandonment did not cease, but

A raging inquest found all free of blame:  

They thought I was waving them good-bye.

I was. Bidding the world good-bye.  

Thus, ran the reel, that dusk in Ostania, where

A solemn gathering bade goodbye to some

The sea had vomited on land, their voyage ended.

Their passports told their origin. The city

Elders did them honour. A rose stalk

Adorned each fallen argonaut, a still 

Line of inland barques for final embarkation.

But now the city craved companion words

To launch them on their way on alien soil.

Badagry waters had reprieved the father’s eyes

To see his sons and daughters feed 

Mediterranean dolphins far from home. 

The City sought him out – for farewell rites –

An epitaph? Lines from a poem perhaps?’

I obliged. You’ll find us in Ostania,

Castaways. Are we not all migrants of a kind?

Kindred minds of questers old and new? Heir

To the sea’s reprieve, the plaint persists: the time

Is ‘out of joint’, the clock’s hands reversed.

The young coral shrivels, and a bleached  fossil

Is exhumed to lead the dirge?