INTERPRET TIME

If we could tell tomorrow, then it'd not be tomorrow, just an expectation of what would happen. Introducing a poem by Wole Soyinka..

To my first white hairs

Hirsute hell chimney-spouts, black thunderthroes
confluence of coarse cloudfleeces – my head sir! - scourbrush
in bitumen, past fossil beyond fingers of light – until ...!

Sudden sprung as corn stalk after rain, watered milk weak;
as lightning shrunk to ant's antenna, shrivelled
off the febrile sight of crickets in the sun -

THREE WHITE HAIRS! frail invaders of the undergrowth
interpret time. I view them, wired wisps, vibrant coiled
beneath a magnifying glass, milk-thread presages

Of the hoary phase. Weave then, weave o quickly weave
your sham veneration. Knit me webs of winter sagehood,
nightcap, and the fungoid sequins of a crown.
- Wole Soyinka


Poet is aghast at how dreadful his hair has become (hirsute hell) having left it to lie dirty and uncombed. How does he go about combing it now, since it must have dandruff (in bitumen) and even his light fingers find it difficult to unravel.

He takes the decision, goes to wash his hair (sprung as corn stalk after rain, watered) and shampoes it (milk weak;). After the washing, his hair becomes untangled and in the mood of the time, he blow-dries it, imagining the noise the blow-dryer makes as crickets in the sun. He makes us believe he blow-dries it indoors (off the febrile sight of crickets in the sun); that's what everyone does, methinks.

After the washing, Soyinka makes a discovery: hidden amongst his hair are three white hairs that foretell what he will be in the future (interpret time). These hairs look weird, different (wired wisps) but seem to tell him that when he's growing old, he'll not be as weak as now (vibrant), no, he'd be ready for what was to come rather than caught unawares (shrivelled), caught sleeping when it's time for the judgment day (beneath a magnifying glass).

Soyinka is quite humorous too. In line 1 of the last verse, he wants us to believe he's not vainglorious? Hmm! He drives a monologue that tells the hairs that he already knows what the future will be, he already knows all that. What would Shakespeare's three witches have said? There is so much energy in his challenge to the prophetic hairs: weave then, weave o quickly weave / your sham veneration, for their prophecy might not come true else if he already knows, then how would that be a prophecy of his future?

And what would Soyinka be in the future? Three things. One, he'll be wise at his old age (winter sagehood); the second, he'll live a life full of trouble, a life of frustration and depression (nightcap); lastly, he'll be a thorn to the authorities, as an elite who's supposed to join them in their rapacious bloodsucking and dirty affairs on the non-elite, or the poor and disadvantaged of the society, he'll expose their evil and they'll call him a rebel, an iconoclast, an outlaw, in his own country (fungoid sequins of a crown).

A careful self-examination of oneself is often prophetic. Take Soyinka's history. They came to pass. I read The man died and knew what he went through at the hands of the authorities in the seventies. I had the opportunity of listening to Radio Kudirat during my campus days; Soyinka and his peers did not only make Abacha run away, he ran away before he died.

Can anyone interpret time, and tell what the future will be from three strands of hair? I looked in the mirror at my hair and didn't find one white spot. Thank God! I think I'll still be reading poetry in the moonlight till tomorrow comes.