My big broth­er and African men­tor, LeRoy Clarke has gone on, and I should have writ­ten this be­fore, days af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the end of his jour­ney. But I couldn’t find the book it is based on when I want­ed to, which seemed to be hid­ing as if to frus­trate me, or else to give me more time for re­flec­tion on his mind, in the clut­ter of small books in my li­brary.

Pur­pose and dili­gence even­tu­al­ly yield­ed its hid­ing place, and here I am writ­ing this eu­lo­gy, for pub­li­ca­tion the day be­fore Bud­get Day 2021-22, choos­ing his book ‘Taste of end­less fruit–A se­lec­tion of Love Po­ems and Draw­ings’. But I know he wouldn’t have mind­ed since he saw our an­nu­al bud­gets as unin­spired, bor­ing, tawdry state­ments of prose dis­con­nect­ed from the spir­its of the peo­ple whom he saw as fer­tile crea­tures of the fe­cund in­ter­course with Earth and so much more than eco­nom­ic be­ings.

I have read the book mul­ti­ple times and the thing that im­press­es most, every sin­gle time I read it, is the abun­dance and bril­liance of its metaphors, some of which I will in­tro­duce you to with­out com­men­tary. At the end, I will re­veal some of my favourites. But first, two things.

First, LeRoy, who nev­er signed his po­ems ‘Leroy Clarke’ but as ‘LeRoy…’ or ‘Le Roy…’ pre­ferred me–and all oth­ers, I sup­pose–to call him ‘Le Roi’ as in the French ren­der­ing of ‘The King’. Sec­ond, in my lat­est read­ing, I have dis­cov­ered that he au­to­graphed the book to my el­der daugh­ter with the words ‘Can­dia, a rare flower of woman in­deed. Stay pre­cious.’ (Can­dia must have been with me when I vis­it­ed.)

So now for some metaphors.

In the ded­i­ca­tion, which is writ­ten to women on­ly, in­clud­ing his Mam­my–‘all en­dur­ing African women’–he de­clares, ‘I kneel, washed in your light’ and goes on to iden­ti­fy as ‘your Son’ but ‘the Broth­er, the Hus­band, the War­rior for­ev­er...your friend.’

The po­ems were writ­ten over the 1960s and 1970s. They do not car­ry ti­tles and there are no page num­bers so I can­not iden­ti­fy any. Every one of them is drawn so that they are not on­ly tex­tu­al but al­so vi­su­al; which means they have to be seen to be ful­ly in­ter­pret­ed. They seem to be par­tic­i­pat­ing in a stream of self-dis­cov­ery, self-propul­sion and self-worth from the woman, and love and love-words for the woman. LeRoy’s love metaphors are more in­tel­lec­tu­al than they are sen­su­ous and bold; and I am afraid they might sound dat­ed to the gen­er­a­tions born in the late 20th cen­tu­ry and in this cen­tu­ry. But read them for the im­agery they con­jure up as well as for the sheer beau­ty of the lan­guage. I use the slash (/) to sep­a­rate vers­es.

‘Sun­rise / as in the del­i­cate tri­umph / of your name / to you / I want to be truth­ful / to be my­self / to love you as my whistling / sim­ply / to sing its dis­syl­la­ble / I named you my queen.’

‘Your love is / a rare moun­tain flower / a waste in my dal­liance.. / the way I treat you.’

‘I chased the dawn / to catch her on the leap of day / and there in the gloom / with the ear­li­est bee and the hum­ming bird / left not one leaf-lip-bud­ding.’

‘So / in the grad­ual length­en­ing of shad­ows / we sank in­to the bo­som of a light serene.. / lost from the most care­ful gaze / as if a heav­en of oceans / had shut the rest of the world off ….’

‘.. and when we had end­ed / we lay blis­tered in sweet juices of fer­ment­ing fruit… / … soft blos­soms whis­per­ing ca­su­al­ly among a per­sua­sion of chil­dren voic­es / de­scend­ing on our bod­ies.’

‘I climb from your toes with the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of a Flame / kiss­ing my way up seek­ing ex­tinc­tion / in the node that branched your thighs / two leg­ends of a pure age.’

‘Shall I say more / I loved her over and over / we tra­versed a con­ti­nent of new mean­ing.’

‘Kissed your breasts / with lips that were a pot­ter’s hands to re­shape their an­cient gold / Held her head in my palms / as a sun among trees / I whis­pered to God / O sea­son’s re­birth / Taste of end­less fruit / Be mine.’

It is at these in­stances / when your fem­i­nine doubts per­fume / in­to a blos­som of charms / when cir­cum­stances that are ab­surd / to sin­gu­lar­ness / of our pri­vate world are asleep.’

‘Woman / I take to my­self / the ely­si­um of your black sleep / My seed / will em­anate the an­ces­tral / Womb / to thrive in the sun­shine of your naked­ness / for­ev­er…’

‘Woman.. / The tall man­go tree that fills the yard of my long­ing … / Please take me / Take me / as you would a boy in search of the ripest fruit / among your leaves… / Take me.’

‘Woman of gazelle-grace and body / smooth bread­fruit trees breast­ing full No­vem­ber fruit / pre­serve your sap for the heat / of my blade / I bring you a thou­sand kiss-kee-dees / for your hair.’

‘Your lips are / sweet­est cher­ries / turned clay-red … / Make me / the on­ly taster… / fill me with strength…’

‘My bride in a cer­e­mo­ny of blos­som­ing poui trees / Ca­ress me where your val­ley is ablaze with colour / Quench the hell where my lust­ing soul screams / Cra­dle me like anx­ious fish in your rapids / till, at last / I am the black spir­it in a shel­tered pond.’

Some of my favourites are: ‘heav­en of oceans’, ‘per­sua­sion of chil­dren’s voic­es’, ‘ex­hil­a­ra­tion of a Flame’, ‘con­ti­nent of new mean­ing’, ‘yard of my long­ing’.