ONCE UPON A TIME – By Gabriel Okara

And this is another deep poem by the Nigerian poet,

Gabriel Okara. Most of us are guilty of the points raised in the poem...lol
I was to act in this poem, as the child the mother was talking to, with Bidemi Stella (can't remember her surname) at Navy Secondary School in Abeokuta, I did not take the part eventually. We had to modify 'son' to 'child' in the recital.... I was in SS1 (1998/1999).


Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed
they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.