1. An Adult Dwarf
The dwarf grew up last Saturday
in a breath not in form,
but in communion.
He confessed through a disciplined smile,
that wisdom was a smaller room
with the furniture rearranged.
He shaved his beard with a moonbeam,
taxed his shadow for rent,
and told the priest,
Salvation was too tall for comfort.
The priest agreed,
alone with him to satisfy his persuasion.
In his town, you know—a clan of minors,
the dwarf hosted a sermon on humility,
And everyone sat cross-legged,
because chairs made them look proud.
He preached,
“God is not big,
we are just overgrown.”
In heaven, angels peeked through keyholes,
enraged with his sermon of heresy,
In hell, the devil begrudged his symmetry.
While here, a poet wept into a thimble,
claiming inspiration has always been itinerant.
In the closing hours of the day,
the dwarf ascends a stool
to pluck a star for supper.
It sizzled like irony
and tasted of forgotten miseries.
By the morrow’s glazing,
he measured his height against the Priest’s silence,
and found he had shrunk
into enlightenment.
2. The Giant Child
The child learned to crawl at noon,
and the continents trembled politely.
He giggled, and Chappal Waddi blushed,
It’d never been so stared at from above.
He asked his mother if clouds were edible,
then swallowed a rainbow to test her answer.
It gave him hiccups of prophecy,
and burps that smelled like petrichor.
A stretch, & a poke from his thumb could tilt Idanre hills.
His marbles were moons,
his teddy bear had its own gravity,
and his cradle was the equator on leave..
He visited the clan of minors,
peering in and seeing only his knees.
A jester bowed at his shadow,
but he thought he was tying his shoes.
He laughed, and the echoes quaked.
He hosted a sermon on innocence,
stood on Nsukka hills,
and thundered, “God is not small,
we just refuse to bend.”
A storm took notes;
a rainbow tried to underline his point.
By evening, he’d learned one lesson:
the taller the dream,
the thinner its oxygen.
He built a cradle in his palm
and filled it with the dwarf’s laughter,
but they slipped between his fingers
like ancient gods avoiding worship.
At night he counted stars as if they were sheep,
but each one fell silent out of awe.
Sleep never came,
it couldn’t climb his height.
And when dawn broke,
he bent low to greet it,
but the sun mistook him for pride
and hid behind a modest cloud.
3. The Mocking God
The maker of them all was formed
between a sigh and a snicker.
Like a hymn hummed in a church during war,
just the quiet accident of fear,
tripping over a desire to bring joy.
He built the world with giggles,
and every galaxy was a bubble
that refused to pop.
Angels learned to cover their ears
because creation tickled too loudly.
He made the Adult Dwarf first,
a philosopher of proportion,
who measured wisdom by reduction
and carved temples in thimbles.
Then came the Giant Child,
a pilgrim of immensity,
who tried to hug the horizon
and broke three mountains in the attempt.
Their God laughed at them both,
Maybe cruelly, maybe maternally,
the way light mocks shadow by loving it.
He made them his lips, upper and lower,
one lips to bless, one to devour.
When the dwarf shrank into enlightenment,
and the giant swelled into loneliness,
their weariness tickled his throat.
He coughed,
and out came mankind,
half foolish, half divine,
always mistaking his laughter for thunder.
Sometimes, as he did in Eden,
He visits the clans of minors,
disguised as a jester, or a mute priest,
He asks softly;
“Do you measure height as pride,
Or wisdom elusive to your stature,
Or your soul in silence?”
None reply.
Their mouths are busy smiling
for reasons the heart forgot to explain.
When night falls,
He leans upon the rim of the universe,
watching stars rehearse their dying.
He laughs again, softly, endlessly,
not because he finds it funny,
but because he remembers
how beautiful it was
to be small enough to weep.
Obongofon Etuk is a Nigerian Pharmacist, poet and dramatist whose work usually explores a questioning of perception, absurdity, even elegies and love amongst others. He is published on Brittle Paper, Afrocritik, amongst others.
Cover photo credit: Tim Mossholder