(For Rev.-Col. Eugene Boapea Boamah Sintim[-Brown], AKA Kwaku Brown,
Retired Chaplain-General of the Ghana Armed Forces, 1941-2017)
Our elders have said
the full-length
of a frog
remains unknown
till upon death
he stretches out
his forelegs
and hindlegs,
and then
his full-length
and height
become the talk
of the town…
I remember
the day
you literally led
me by the hand
to my high school
admission
interview;
it was at
Okwawu Nkwatia’s
St. Peter’s,
the best high school
of its kind
in the country
at the time…
PERSCO
was then
in a class
all by itself,
PERSCO
was also
popularly called
Okwawu University or
The University
of the Okwawu
Mountains.…
Recently,
Israel’s Ambassador
to Ghana
was reported
by the press
to have said
Ghana has no
mountains,
only hills;
I snorted
with contempt
and expelled
the bloody mucous
that attended
such crap;
who told that SOB
we determine
our values
on the strength
of the warped
opinions of
strangers and
scumbags….
Anyway,
I had barely made
the passing
mark and would
in all likelihood
not have met
the intake
requirements
but for your close
connection
with Mr. Buabeng,
your Akyem-Apedwa
homeboy,
who had also been
your classmate
at Akropong-PTC…
Mr. Buabeng
was the Senior
Math Teacher at
PERSCO…
he would present me
to “Owudo,”
the German Headmaster,
and the rest of
the interviewing panel,
as his nephew;
and so I guess
I also got into
PERSCO as
a protocol kid;
Mr. Buabeng
was one of those
uncles
one never met
and yet came in
handy at just
the right
time,
a protocol kid
and his protocol
first-time
uncle….
How true
what our sages
of yore
used to say:
the beginning of life
is not quite as
important
as the end;
I would end up
collecting prizes
for English
and History
and Literature
and Geography –
funny for me
who barely understood
English and
marginally
spoke it
to have received
a prize
in the same,
a garland
around my neck,
victory-powder
sprinkled
all over
my head….
You see,
at the interview,
I could not
understand
a single question
beyond
“What is your name?
And where is
your hometown?”
Everything had to be
translated for me
into Akan,
the Asante-Akyem
dialect
of Akan,
that is,
that was how
dumb blond
I was,
which was why
none of you thought
I would emerge
Flying
Red
Gold
And
Green…
the Black Star
was somewhere
nobody recalls
till this day;
and then I took
the History prize
because I had gotten
deep into
the curious
mystery
of African
enslavement
by white men
from England
and America
and Arabia
in fourth grade…
it was as if
it had been
an open-season
on Africans by
every damn
Eurasian
throat-cutting
buffoon,
an open-season
on the black man
and his
big-butted and
jumbo-boobed
woman –
the large-brained ape,
as Doctor DuBois
cast it…
and then
in my third year
at PERSCO,
I began reading
my poems
on Radio Ghana
and Ghana “Telefihin”…
on Variety Ahoy!
with Mr. Gordon
Avenorgbor,
and Solid Black,
with Mr. Carl
Agyemang-
Bannerman…
I never quite
made it to
The Voices of Out Time,
hosted by Joyce
Aryee-Lartey
or some such name,
though,
because that was when
destiny appeared
on the scene
and hoisted me
high into
the skies
and bam!
into New York City.…
Wofa,
today,
I recalled
how immensely
tall you had stood
head-and-shoulders
above all your sibs,
though you were
only the fifth
out of six….
Wofa,
today,
memory took me
back to where
and from whom
it all began;
and then
I started
laughing
and feeling
foolish about
how
scandalously
I had taken
you for granted,
which may pretty
much explain
why in this dream
that I had
the week before
you took your
final leap into
the cosmic ravine,
you were me
and I was
you…
I told
my wife
it was
the most
bizarre
of all dreams
I have ever
had and then
Yaw Kafui called
and announced
your death…
since then,
I have been
tearing up
like a
waterfall…
8/4/17
(RIP)