MI-SS-I-SS-I-PPI Here where Ol' Man River empties its long, long story into the Sea, its lips heavy with uncharted crossings Where myths meander their way through mangrove fables bearing fragments of upland truths Here where the River ends its song let my own begin I sing, then, of the magic of the Sun so tropical on this uneven plain Of alluvial silences brown with the rain, mellow with Memory's music Of the pecan-eyed pelicans of History nesting in the artificial island between our skins And cottonfields which drift into the distance white with power, obscene with Negro sweat Oh for the countless songs and fables mothered by this alluvial dirt Reared between pain and pang in the outhouse of wounded tribes Rising strong, drifting North, thunder-clear brown like the Flood, bluer than the Sea... In the sand, hoofprints of yester-wars and I, sojourner, striving hopewards Between Walker's songs and the fables of Faulkner Niyi Osundare

Niyi Osundare is a prolific poet, playwright, and literary scholar. He was born in 1947 in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. Having served as a professor and also Department Head of English at the University of Ibadan for eight years, Osundare and his family moved to the United States to allow one of his daughters the chance to broaden her education. He has been an English professor at the University of New Orleans since 1997. His most recent poetry collection is entitled City Without People.