Longlisted Poem: “Garden of Wonder”
ALFRED OLAIYA is a poet and spoken word artist. He is in love with colours, emotional spirituality and the realms beyond. He was the second runner up at 2022 Spring Poetry Contest, was shortlisted for the 2025 Bridgette James Poetry Contest, and was a finalist for the 2025 Custodian of African Literature (COAL) Poetry Contest. His works have appeared in Best New African Poets (BNAP) 2021 Anthology, Poetry Archive, The AprilCentaur, Decades of Nine Hills and Thrills anthology, Libretto Magazine, and Soil Unfurling from Stem Anthology.
Garden of Wonder
Say you’re in a garden,
wandering, wondering
how colour on the skin of day
wears out like laughter off a widow’s face.
You see butterflies flutter by & watch rainbows
drape off their wilting wings, gradually,
sadly.
A river throws a cold knock on your feet,
you dip your index finger into it & spiral your
fond memories into records plunged in loop.
Reminiscence swirls underneath as grain of sand.
You gather a handful in your palm and squeeze it with relish
before blowing away like darkness at the arrival of dawn.
Say this is how you learn to paint the faces of sweet songs
with kisses before they melt down your throat in vestigial globules—
that farewell hug by the railway station, that family dinner in a warm night;
that face laid on the pillow next to you, that birthday party with whetted
fiends in the bottom of every liquor cup. That chameleon imprisoned
in the mirror of your eyes,
shifting through itinerant attires.
Say this is how you understand why the day loses its colour
at the entrance of this poem, how you are one of
those butterflies, shedding moments off your body.
carrying new ones,
shedding off…
carrying new ones, shedding off. Say this is how you learn
to savour the wine
in their brief weights.