Abiku by WOLE SOYINKA

Abiku

In vain your bangles cast

Charmed circles at my feet;
I am Abiku, calling for the first
And the repeated time.

Must I weep for goats and cowries

For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?
Yams do not sprout in amulets
To earth Abiku's limbs.

So when the snail is burnt in his shell

Whet the heated fragments, brand me
Deeply on the breast. You must know him
When Abiku calls again.

I am the squirrel teeth, cracked

The riddle of the palm. Remember
This, and dig me deeper still into
The god's swollen foot.

Once and the repeated time, ageless

Though I puke. And when you pour
Libations, each finger points me near
The way I came, where

The ground is wet with mourning

White dew suckles flesh-birds
Evening befriends the spider, trapping
Flies in wind-froth;

Night, and Abiku sucks the oil

From lamps. Mother! I'll be the
Supplicant snake coiled on the doorstep
Yours the killing cry.
The ripes fruit was saddest;
Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.
In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.

Abiku
Coming and going these several seasons,
Do stay out on the baobab tree,
Follow where you please your kindred spirits
If indoors is not enough for you.
True, it leaks through the thatch
When floods brim the banks,
And the bats and the owls
Often tear in at night through the eaves,
And at harmattan, the bamboo walls
Are ready tinder for the fire
That dries the fresh fish up on the rack.
Still, it�s been the healthy stock
To several fingers, to many more will be
Who reach to the sun.
No longer then bestride the threshold
But step in and stay
For good. We know the knife scars
Serrating down your back and front
Like beak of the sword-fish,
And both your ears, notched
As a bondsman to this house,
Are all relics of your first comings.
Then step in, step in and stay
For her body is tired,
Tired, her milk going sour
Where many more mouths gladden the heart.

Review

The title of J.P. Clark�s poem is a store of meaning for the poem itself since it
gives us understanding of many of the sentences we will encounter in the poem. The
word Abiku is Yoruba for �spirit child. It refers to a child who must die and
repeatedly be reborn again and again. So, Clark is talking to one of these Abiku.

The poem opens by Clark sounding a denouncement to this Abiku who probably has just
been reborn, for �coming and going these several seasons� (line 1) to mean that he
gets born, and when the family thinks that he is here to stay, he dies. And he does
it several times so that Clark seems so fed up as to tell him to �stay out on the
baobab tree� (line 2). In Ghanaian cultural tradition and I should suppose same for
Nigerian too, the baobab tree is suspected to be the meeting place of all manner of
spirits, witches and wizards who work at night. This is because the tree is usually
huge, grows tall and has thick shrubbery that gives it a mystical look especially
at night. By asking Abiku to stay out on the baobab tree, Clark is asking him to
stay in the spirit world and not be reborn. In the third line, Clark emphasises
this by asking Abiku to �follow� where he pleases his �kindred spirits�, which
gives a sense that Abiku keeps coming and going from a community of like-minded
spirits. This should be so, as Clark says, if �indoors is not enough� for Abiku
(line 4). Indoors refers to normal life among men when Abiku brings joy at birth,
only to bring sorrow at death soon after.

Clark goes on to explain the modest conditions in which they live, if perhaps that
is what keeps Abiku going away. He confesses that it �leaks through the thatch�
(line 5), a roof of grass and straw used as matting for a poor home built usually
of clay, when it rains till �floods brim the banks� (line 6). At night also, bats
and owls tear through the eaves (lines 7-8), making sleep difficult. Then when the
dry harmattan of the West African dry season comes, the bamboo support of the house
is torn down to make fires on which the poor fish caught for the household is dried
up on the rack (line 9-11). Maybe Abiku keeps going because he is born into a poor
home. Clark makes this excuse and still insists that Abiku should stay out
nevertheless because regardless of how poor they are, the house is the �healthy
stock� (line 12) to many more people who are born and stay, and others more who
�reach to the sun� (line 13). I will translate this reaching to the sun to mean
that they grow up, each growing taller bringing them vertically closer to the sun.
Abiku never stays long enough to grow up.

Clark continues that Abiku should make up his mind, no longer should he �bestride
the threshold� (line 14), meaning he should no longer stay with one foot indoors
and the other out on the baobab tree; an indecision between life and death, this
world and the other, �but step in and stay. For good� (line 15-16). Henceforth,
Clark mentions a few things we will need to understand by understanding the culture
of Yoruba.

When an Abiku comes and goes a couple of times, a frustrated family gives the Abiku
scars at birth so that being now made ugly, it will displease the gods and spirits
to have him return to the spirit world. This makes the child stay alive and end the
sorrow of the family that is burdened to bear that child over and over. Clark says
that they can see and �know the knife scars� (line 16) running �down [his] back and
front� (line 17), �like beak of the sword-fish� (line 18). They have made their
mark on him so that when he has now been reincarnated with those scars, they
recognize him �as a bondsman to [their] house� (line 20), having also �both [his]
ears, notched� (line 19). In pastoral communities, cattle owners use ear brands and
notches to indicate which cattle belong to them. These notches look like huge,
coloured earrings on which specific alphabets or even the colour, serve to identify
one man�s cattle from his neighbour�s. Clark says that these very evident marks are
�relics of [Abiku�s] first comings� (line 21). They are not mistaken; they know him
as the one.

Finally, Clark tries to convince Abiku to �step in, step in and stay� (line 22),
for the woman who bears him is now �tired� (line 22) of his many reincarnations and
so tired that her milk now is �going sour� (line 23). This souring only happens to
milk that has grown old and we will assume this to mean that the woman is now
growing too old to keep up with Abiku�s treachery and may no longer have a strong
body to bear him. Clark tries to make it not sound so bad, by saying that it is
with this same milk that �many more mouths� (line 23), presumably of those other
people who stay and �reach to the sun�, have �gladden[ed] the heart (line 23).
Which heart? The hearts of the family which have not hurt because these other
people lived on and also the hearts of these ones who lived on to gladden
themselves with the milk of this woman�s breast!

This is a great poem by all standards and there is no doubt why it is one of
Clark�s most studied.