The mellifluous Ben Okri entranced us at Buckingham Literary Festival. This poem is my take on him and on his sharing of The Magic Lamp history (Ben Okri, poet and Rosemary Clunie, artist). I asked him for three words he would want to see in a poem about himself. They were ‘laughter’, ‘spirit’ and ‘magic’…
A philosopher dreamt on a stage before us
Bade us step into the space between brush strokes
And led us down a painted path
Born of grace and silver his footsteps were light
He left pursuit of knowledge for a quest to unlearn
And we followed him into the silence of colours
Words sang him darkly under blue and yellow skies
Black lines curling into painted prose
Encircling the smudging pastels
When we shivered, the dreamer draped us with his laughter
Warm and brown as vanilla pods
Until we melted like the pricked yolk of the sun
Then the poet poured words into our throats
And drew our voices on the words of writers
High rise ‘I rise’ into the vaulted ceiling
There in the shadows his spirit ignited ours
With the magic of imagination and feeling
And we were mesmerised.