Teacher, journalist and former director of Radio Dahomey, Emile Ologoudou was born in Dahomey (now known as Benin) in June 1935. He has produced several books of poems.

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Vespers

Emile Ologoudou

Autumnal skies

the sun has smashed his jar of red oil,

on this day of great anger over the earth

I will leave the dainty lettering of the sky

with

this

message heavy as a bobbin of lead

to tell my people what I am told to tell them,

it is the fixed invective of the other shore

and

the heart at this work for the rest of my life,

I shall see no more this sun which totters,

this light which crumples under the slow shadows,

ah!

what are they these things which capsize

in

the sea of my being at the hour of departure?

it is, at the very summit of the soul,

terror before the thousand promises we shall be able to keep.

Translated by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier

*Third World Resurgence No. 285, May 2014, p 44