Review of the call of river nun
The Call of the River Nun
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| The Call of the River Nun
I hear your call! I hear it far away; I hear it break the circle of these crouching hills. I want to view your face again and feel your cold embrace; or at your brim to set myself and inhale your breath; or like the trees, to watch my mirrored self unfold and span my days with song from the lips of dawn. I hear your lapping call! I hear it coming through; invoking the ghost of a child listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow. My river’s calling too! Its ceaseless flow impels my found’ring canoe down its inevitable course. And each dying year brings near the sea-bird call, the final call that stills the crested waves and breaks in two the curtain of silence of my upturned canoe. O incomprehensible God! Shall my pilot be my inborn stars to that final call to Thee. O my river’s complex course? In this poem, Okara was trying to remember his life as a child born at the bank of River Nun; how peaceful, joyous and beautiful life was at that time. Then coming into life as an adult in a strange place like Enugu, he found that things were not what he thought they would be. As a child, everything was rosy and beautiful. But as an adult, he came face to face with the realities of life, and the various challenges people contend with. People follow unscrupulous ways to get along, shoving other people aside in a crowd to move on. It became a matter of survival of the fittest.1 For me, the poem delves beyond personal expressions of Okara and moves towards the generality of life. From birth to death, and the struggles man encounters on his way, symbolized by the rivers inevitable course. My river’s calling too! Its ceaseless flow impels my found’ring canoe down its inevitable course. . Download 25.42 Kb. Share with your friends:
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