I wrote this poem last January for Susanne Wenger when news broke that she had passed, and sent it to a couple of friends.

LIKE CHALK IN THE RIVER
For Susanne, Olorisha!

They said it rained when Susanne was buried.
It poured.
They spoke of a rumble of the heavens
as the orisa osun swam back, again, to her pristine source.

They talked of art.
They spoke of beauty.
They mentioned hands
That sculpted spirits.

But now when the forests have stopped dancing with the rain,
See the wind escape from that storied grove.
Look, amid the hallowed haze,
at a turning twirl of her spirit gaze.

Gone is the eye that looked out for the standing stems
When greed called for arms, and men scorned sense, and all she wove.

Today, the Spirit it was that left, again,
To return. To return: a time-bound god, or else a traveling dove.

NOTE: Susanne Wenger was the Austrian artist who lived most of her life in Osogbo Nigeria as a priestess of the river Osun. Born in Austria and was married to the artist Ulli Beier who brought her to Nigeria in the 60s. She died last January at the age of