Tue, 31 Jul 2012 Feature Article

To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute 11

Our clansfolk
have a saying that:
“When you plant plantains,
do also plant bananas
for a rainy day”…
This is where
I have my
chunkiest beef
to crunch
with you,
Uncle Tee,
for as you grew up
and got comfortable
with your decent lot
in life
as an adult,
you also became
so haughtily
self-assured
in your newly-acquired
born-again Christian
principles and practice,
you became snooty
and cavalier
with the sacred ways
of your forebears –
once,
you even summarily
stopped
a prayerful libation
in its tracks
at Independence Square…
and I also hear
as well as
Bukom Square….
Ebeii,
Uncle Tee,
what is our world
coming to,
and what version
of the Bible
do you read –
it is almost
as if
you never heard
the real
and true
Prophet Iesu Kristo
command us to offer
unto Caesar
what belongs
to Caesar and,
in your rather
peculiar case,
what belongs to
Babalawo
Temitope
Tigare
Balogun,
the meddling
faux-prophet
of Lagos –
Uncle,
you ought to have
reminded Chief Shit-Bomber,
your successor,
you cannot eat
your Ofam
and have it,
too;
that a man
who claims to be
too big
for his knickers,
and too disdainful
of the ways
of our sires,
ought not be mourned
the customary way,
for he has broken
bonds of kinship
and thus
no longer
belongs
with us…
and so come
Tuesday,
the first week
in the wake
of the laying
of your ghost,
I shall not wear
black,
taupe
or red;
I shall not libate,
neither shall I
fast;
rather,
I shall pray
you never return
your wayward self
this way
ever again…
raw grief,
sadness,
pain
and all,
we did not raise you
to grow taller
and stronger
than most of us,
so you could convert
our pates into
talking-drums…
the bitter truth
must,
once again,
be told you
even in death,
as was told you
at dawn
that Holy Friday
of your birth:
there is water
and then
there is liquor,
even as the globe
rotates
and by turns
shares sunlight
and nightfall
among our kinsfolk
and other
Earthlings –
you were no exception
to the natural order
of things,
and that is the way
things ought to be…
7/30/12

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD, taught Print Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City, for more than 20 years. He is also a former Book Review Editor of The New York Amsterdam News.. More He holds Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) in English, Communications and Africana Studies from The City College of New York of The City University of New York, where he was named a Ford Foundation Undergraduate Fellow and the first recipient of the John J. Reyne Artistic Achievement Award in English Poetry (Creative Writing) in 1988.

The author was part of the "socially revolutionary" team of undergraduate journalists at City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY), who won First-Prize certificates for Best Community Reporting from the Columbia University School of Journalism, for three consecutive years, from 1988 to 1990.

Born April 8, 1963, in Ghana; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Kwame (an educator) and Dorothy (maiden name, Sintim) Okoampa-Ahoofe; children: Abena Aninwaa, Kwame III. Ethnicity: "African." Education: City College of the City University of New York, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1990; Temple University, M.A., 1993, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: Independent. Religion: "Christian—Ecumenist." Hobbies and other interests: Political philosophy.

CAREER: Ghana National Cultural Center, Kumasi, poet, 1979–84; Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, worked as instructor in English; Technical Career Institutes, New York, NY, instructor in English, 1991–94; Indiana State University, Terre Haute, instructor in history, 1994–95; Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY, member of English faculty. Participant in World Bank African "Brain-Gain" pilot project.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, African Studies Association, Community College Humanities Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Essay award, Nassau Review, 1999.Column: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

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To My Uncle Tarkwa Atta – A Tribute 11

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