But my friends would not let me be. One of them, Foday Samateh, a student of English in a New York university, wrote a piece in an online Gambian portal guying me to return to writing. “Break your silence with a letter to [the king],” he exhorted, “The Silent Londoner must come out and restore equilibrium to the unbalanced state of mind as a matter of exigency.” Foday was a tad upset that the king had thrown a beach party after his latest coronation to celebrate “the defeat of intellectualism” and wanted a censure from me.
Duh! As if a censure from a poor son of an ink would have any cathartic effect on a king as great as Xerxes who would even lash out at the sea 300 times for… You see, I like beach parties and I love celebrations and festivals. After all Gambetta once said, “les temps heroiques sont passes” – the heroic times, the age of Nyanchoya and chivalry, have passed. Now, we are all penguins in a colony hopping in unison. The Greek writer Democritus wrote that “life without festivals is like a long road without an inn”. In these times, it is better to pray than to preach, not so much unlike the Trappist Monks!
When I was growing up in Brikama, there was a logger called Ba Foday Janneh who lived at the end of our street. A gentler and goodlier man never lived. He never had much money – sometimes not even for tobacco for the pipe ever stuck to his mouth – but he always had a smile and a little pet advice for us, the young boys of Brikama Saatay-ba. One late afternoon, while I was taking my dogs to hunt for the hare in the copses in the outskirts of Brikama known as Wolf’s Creek (Sulu Dinka), he stopped me and said: “Baaba Sharif, make sure you head for home before darkness sets in and remember when you climb the grey plum tree, take the honey but do not destroy the hive.” And with that he patted me on my head, smiled with dewy-eyed adoration and continued munching his cola-nut.
Now Foday Samateh, since we cannot preach, I pray, what else can I tell the King but Ba-Foday Janneh’s little advice: Take the honey but do not destroy the hive. And remember the counsel of the ancient prophet Sulayman Junkung, The Wise, when he said: “In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.” And with that I add this little prayer of a psalm:
Hear me
Mighty heavens
Sand grains of the earth
Waters of the great ocean
Winged spirits of the high
I speak to You
Who sent Your messenger
By cavalry and camelry
From atop a mountain sylvan
The thunder repeats Your praise
Mountains crack in fear of You
The sun dims before Your splendour
Oceans quake from the heat of Your nostril
Earth melts like wax at Your gaze
Your power reigns this day
Tomorrow and yesterday
Who besides You knows a thing?
No leaf falls to the ground
No reef shoots from the ocean floor
But with Your command
Some say Uzair is Your son
Some say Jesus is Your Son
Some say Anax is Your son
But I know
You are not an anchorite
I bow before no man
I sing the praise of no king
I pour libation to no god
The meditation of my heart
And the words of my mouth
All the days of my life
Are for You, The One
You say you hear
The prayer of every supplicant
Then I pray for John
Him of many names
Once you told Your people
‘I have given strength to a warrior
A young man I exalted
From among his people
His right hand
I shall set over the rivers’.
Make him that young man
Make him a lion
With honour on the tongue of truth
Make men follow him
Like the rain trails the wind
Make his soul beautiful to You
Like wild sunflower in bloom
Do not girt him by his sins
Make his heart soft like dusky dew
To be a receptacle of Your light
Speak to him like you did Moses
Give him like You did Dives
Look upon him like you did Abraham
Do not make his brook dry
Do not make him sleep on a bed of tears
Let the clouds of Your mercy
Pour their moisture
To water the soul of his heart
Lord, make him drink
From Your River of Unstaling Water
From Your River of Ever-Fresh Milk
From Your River of Ambrosial Wine
From Your River of Nectarous Honey
From Your River of Eternal Bounty
Make him not one of those
Who waiver between this and that
Who neither belongs here nor there
Who believes in the morning
Only to disbelieve in the evening
Give him the wisdom to eschew
Easy praise and the hard sell
Make him a cloak of righteousness
To wear until his mercury cord is severed
And his dust returns to the ground
Bestow on him the lucidity of Luqman
That quintessence of faith
Give him the patience of Job
The vision of Balaam
And the strength of Samson
Make him a hunter like Nimrod
Of hearts not heads
Make him a bard like Naphtali
To rap Your beautiful names
Make him a warrior like Ali
Whose bow shall never break
You Who created the rivulet
Beneath Mary as she laboured
By the palm tree trunk
You Who taught
The wisdom in the chronicles of Alexander
Make Your love burn like a furnace
On the tablet of his heart
You Who made him from nothing
Fashioned his bones
Covered them with flesh
And gave him a tongue and two eyes
You the Owner of the Beautiful Names
Supreme Owner of praise and glory
Lord of the Phoenix and Scorpio
I Fadel, the Son of Dembo
Chant this psalm
With voice raised like a trumpet
In the quiet valley of Santang-ba
To the beat of the cymbals of my heart
In Your praise, to Your glory.
My dear Foday, since we can preach, only pray, this I pray to the King for the king. Amen
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