Rites Of The Seventh Month Poem by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Empyrean drops,
Monument of July,
The pluvial chapter of life...

O July of enfeebled yolk,
Dispenser of splendour of sempervirence,
God has watered your tongue.
Therefore, pour, July, pour
The essence of life,
The grit of living
Unto the bosom of the
Seventh month and other
Months of parturition.

Let us conceive in July,
To bear in good season,
Sons of courage...
Wearing festal garments
And adorning our heads with sepia cloths,
This shall reinforce hope.
In front of the monument of July,
(A slouching image of sleepy rain)
Right on its wet feet,
Shall we bless the earth abundantly.

O July,
Bearer of thirty-one offspring,
Male and female, dew and fog,
So full of grains of years,
Frenzied and dancing your rites
Together with the age of insistent youth!
Middle age is when neither youth nor old age
Finds you worthy...

They sing:
The perception of the pristine green
Aroma of July
Is often the first of the rites
Of the seventh month.