Beware! Soul Brother - Chinua Achebe (Poem)
We are the men of soul men of song we measure out our joys and agonies too, our long, long passion week in paces of the dance. We have come to know from surfeit of suffering that even the Cross need not be a dead end nor total loss if we should go to it striding the dirge of the soulful abia drums. . . But beware soul brother of the lures of ascension day the day of soporific levitation on high winds of skysong; beware for others there will be that day lying in wait leaden-footed, tone-deaf passionate only for the deep entrails of our soil; beware of the day we head truly skyward leaving that spoil to the long ravenous tooth and talon of their hunger. Our ancestors, soul brother, were wiser than is often made out. Remember they gave Ala, great goddess of their earth, sovereignty too over their arts for they understood too well those hard-headed men of departed dance where a man’s foot must return whatever beauties it may weave in air, where it mus
