Nick Makoha

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Codex©

When death was a winged horse, I escaped
my country by taking a flight south. Clouds
between the sky and us. Between the earth
and us. I devoted my time to the background
turning slowly as engines roared, en route
to a waiting city. The night seemed to comprehend
and answer, it became a guardian that mistook
me for part of itself. Sometimes it was a gate
or face or a document. But as a desert bird
is silent so was I. As the light turned so did
the stretched wings of the plane. Maybe I’m
only here to wait, the way a mountain waits
for the valley below. The way the future waits
for our lives to take place, learning and watching.

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NICK MAKOHA is the founder of The Obsidian Foundation. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of The Guardian’s best books of the year.